Warning.

The following story contains material which some readers might find
objectionable, including sexual scenes involving humans and reptilians,
character development, violence, dialogue, and continuity.  Reader
discretion is advised.

Absolute Zero, Chapter One:  Supernature


First Journal Entry
February 23rd, 1998

        The sun beat down hard upon me, as it has for the past seven years
of my life.  I stood outside my tee-pee and scanned the dusty horizon for
any signs of saurian activity.  Content with seeing nothing and filled with
a desire to escape the relentless heat, I entered my portable shelter and
prepared for a feast I hadn't enjoyed in weeks -- unfertilized saurian eggs.
The Tyranno guards outside the hatcheries referred to those who stole them
as "oviraptors" -- egg thieves.  After a couple of days without solid food, I
was more than brave enough to try my luck at a hatchery I encountered in
my constant trek across the desert.

        Using parts from an old heliograph once used to send concentrated
sunlight beams across great distances as a form of communication, I fried up
the eggs and ate them with reckless abandon.  I wasn't surprised when my
stomach began to growl for more, but it should know better by now than
to expect such miracles.  Fear of reprisal searches from the hatchery
motivated me to pack up the tee-pee and move on, towards my elusive, and I
hoped _not_ mythical, goal:  Lava Dome II.

        I use the word mythical, because most of the events that led to
humanity's fate are still shrouded in mystery, at least to me.  Once people
noticed the weather changing and communications crumbling, there was little
that could be done to stop the invading aliens from completely subjugating
the human race into a mere fallow species, hardly worthy of slave labor.
By my calculations, it was a little over seven years ago that a race of
creatures -- known as Tyrannos in our language -- destroyed Earth's defenses,
crippled its populous, and changed the climate over the entire planet to
that of a sweltering desert.

        Legend has it, as I have heard from various other free human
travelers I have encountered -- some not so friendly -- that the invasion
actually began several years before that, when another race of creatures
known as Dinosaucers landed on Earth looking for help.  They claimed that
they had come from a planet in Earth's orbit on the far side of the
sun (which I attribute merely to legend, as any physics major could detail
the impossibility of this), a planet they called Reptilon.  Supposedly,
the planet's development paralleled Earth's, except that the catastrophe that
had decimated the dinosaurs here on Earth millions of years ago spared
Reptilon.  Again, I feel this is a dramatic way of describing some other
mechanism, one which I hope to discover truly someday, somehow.  Their
planet was slowly dying...food supplies for their populace were rapidly
dwindling, and they came to Earth in search of biological materials and
ideas that could help to re-vegetate their desert world.  They befriended
a group of humans when they landed, and they provided the Dinosaucers
with the knowledge that could help them save Reptilon.

        Unfortunately, not all Reptilonians wore the Dinosaucers emblem.
A radical group of renegade saurians, under the name Tyrannos, sought to
overthrow the Dinosaucers' majority rule on Reptilon, and conquer both
our worlds.  Thanks to incompetent strategies provided by Genghis Rex, the
leader of the Tyrannos, they always failed...until one of the Dinosaucers
gave away their best weapon and defense, and betrayed all of her kind.  She
went on Earth by the name Teryx (as all of the Dinosaucers and Tyrannos
who were members of that first mission were chosen from their representative
species, and took on new names that were abbreviated names of the Earth
dinosaurs they most resembled), and it is told that she betrayed everything
for the love of a human, destroying the Dinosaucers on Earth, and handing
over the secret of "dinovolution" to Genghis Rex himself.  Dinovolution was
the ability of the Dinosaucers to change their bodies into the physical
equivalent of their primitive ancestors, whilst retaining all their current
mental faculties, for short periods of time.

        With the most powerful ability of the Dinosaucers in the Tyrannos
grasp, it was only a short period of time before the leaders of the
Dinosaucers, the Dinosorceror and Dinosorceress, were vanquished, and the
reign of terror on both Earth and Reptilon began.  Using technology stolen
from the Dinosaucers, Genghis Rex completed his plans for weather control
devices to be placed in orbit above both planets.  He restored a lush, green
appearance to Reptilon, while he turned Earth into a veritable wasteland,
to be used as a place to manufacture machinery, mine useful elements, and
exile remaining Dinosaucers who would not bow to his will.

        The only full-scale battle that ever occurred on Earth took place
shortly after the weather began to change.  Using modified dinovolution
technology, he created an army of gigantic Tyrannos, hundreds of feet tall,
to destroy civilization as I knew it.  Before the governments of the world
even began to debate the use of nuclear weapons, their arsenals were
decimated, their armies futile, their populace eliminated.  Once Genghis Rex
had decided that humanity no longer posed a threat to his supremacy, he
simply ignored the remaining humans as he built complex after complex to
harvest the Earth for all it was still worth.  I have heard stories of people
being used in bizarre genetic experiments and used as deep space explorer
guinea-pigs, but I have yet to find any truth to these rumors.

        There isn't much to say about what has happened since then.  My
existence has been merely a grim struggle for survival, wandering from ruin
to ruin, scavenging human and alien technology, and trying to learn more
about the destroyers of my world.  Through encounters with friendly
Dinosaucers, and more than a few with unfriendly Tyrannos, I learned a few
more facts about their world, and even picked a few words of their native
Reptilonian tongue.  It seems that both factions refer to their homeworld as
a derivation of their own name, the Dinosaucers as a word sounding like
"jrathan" and the Tyrannos sounding like "eetreran."  The Tyrannos, their
conquest of Earth more than complete, have stopped speaking our tongue, but
the Dinosaucers I have encountered here on Earth still speak our language
fluently as a sign of our mutual defiance to their rule.

        One of the more recent Dinosaucers I had spoken to, just a few months
ago, said he was privy to information regarding the first Dinosaucer mission
to Earth.  His name was Seff, and he claimed that the Dinosaucer base on
Earth was called Lava Dome II, after their home base in their capital city
on Reptilon.  From his physical description of the location, I have deduced
that Lava Dome II is somewhere in Colorado here in what was once the United
States, built inside an extinct volcano.  If what Seff said was true, then
Lava Dome II is my only goal.  Surviving in this wasted carcass of a world
isn't enough.  I want to have a piece of the life I could have led.  I want
my life back!  The closest thing I can get to that is to fight these invading
Tyrannos with all my might.  I do *not* want to die in vain, a meaningless
skeleton in a dry river bed to disintegrate.  If I could just reach Lava
Dome II, I might be able to find some artifacts that might help...that is,
if the Tyrannos haven't completely decimated the installation.

        This will be my first and last journal entry, as there is simply
nothing left to say.  If I succeed, there will be no need to chronicle my
hardships; if I fail, these words are already vapor.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Somewhere near the remains of Boulder, Colorado

        "Do you think that could be the place?" Matt asked Shuffle, a ball of
fur tucked inside his clothing.  Shuffle used his two tiny padded feet, his
only extremities, to work his way up to Matt's neck and look through the
telescope that Matt held up for him.  "Hmm..." Shuffle replied.  "The
very top there reminds me of some structures I've seen on Reptilon,
but..."

        "But it could just be an abandoned Tyranno facility," Matt sighed as
he collapsed the scope and placed it in his pack.  He pulled down his shirt
slightly, and Shuffle eagerly hopped out onto the sand before them.  Matt had
picked up the little furball a few months back.  It seemed that his species
was the last variant of mammal on Reptilon, and when the Tyrannos took over,
they had eradicated them, with only an unknown few escaping on cargo
vessels bound for Earth.  He had asked them why the Tyrannos simply didn't
use them for food, and it was even more intriguing than the reason they
didn't prefer humans:  not only did they dislike the taste, but all Tyrannos
became violently allergic in their presence.  Matt thought for a moment this
might have been one of the driving forces to divide the Tyrannos from the
Dinosaucers, but right now his thoughts were on the crumbling dome a few
miles ahead of them.

        "Smell any Tyrannos nearby?" Matt asked Shuffle.  He hopped around
in all directions before answering negative.  The only problem was that the
dome was downwind from where they stood.

        "Well, we could stand here and roast a little more, or we could
try to make it to that structure by nightfall," Matt pondered.  Shuffle
started to hop up and down, shouting "Yeah!  Yeah!  Yeah!"  Matt didn't know
which choice he agreed with, but he decided to make some more progress
towards the ruin.

        Half an hour later, the dome was now detailed to the naked eye in the
ruby red sunset.  He was about to suggest they stop and rest up for an
exploration tomorrow, when Shuffle suddenly thrust himself into the
shifting sands, disappearing completely.  Matt could only interpret this
action as a sign of trouble, and dove to the tip of the nearest dune.  He
saw nothing on the distant horizon but the ruin, but when he turned around
he saw a fair-sized spacecraft bearing the standard Tyranno insignia hovering
not far behind him, a few hundred feet off of the ground.  *Why didn't that
little bastard warn me ahead of time?* Matt thought as the craft clearly
knew he had seen it now, and moved to intercept him.  Possessing no weapons
and having no defense, he simply ran.

        The shuttle, of course, easily caught up to him.  Matt felt and saw
the liquid-like emanations of a tractor beam grasp him.  It quickly and
nimbly drew him within the ship through a port in the belly, and in the
span of a few blinks, Matt was sitting in the quiet hold of the Tyranno
spacecraft, with Shuffle presumably still on the surface.

        As the dust and sand settled from his ragged clothes, the door to
the bay slid open, and the powerful figure of a brown female allosaur -- one
of the races that belonged to the Dinosaucers! -- stepped into the hold.
Matt stood up and was about to smile the most he had in years when the
allosaur removed a weapon from her holster and pointed it at him.  She spoke
in English.

        "I am Systra of the third Tyranno reconnaissance squadron.  Our duty
is to make sure this planet remains free of interlopers and vermin like
yourself.  Let's suppose you give me one good reason why I shouldn't use
this on you here and now."

        "Perhaps because I don't even know what that gun does," Matt replied
in broken, barely understandable Reptilonian.

        She cocked an eye at him; her tail slithered nervously behind her.
"You aren't...of _course_ not," she continued in English.  "To think that
the mighty Genghis Rex would use such a lowly species for intelligent tasks.
I can hardly believe the thought crossed my mind!  You are nothing more than
someone's trained pet.  Having a little pet to accompany me on my missions might
not be such a terrible notion, however..."  She began to lower her gun,
and took a few enormous strides towards Matt, but he assumed a fighting
stance.

        "Pathetic little mammal!" she roared.  "Have you never seen the power
of a fossilizer before?"  She stepped into a corner of the hold and opened
a large drum.  Reaching in, she pulled out a nameless furball and threw
it beside Matt.  *So that's why they've recruited a Dinosaucer for the job,*
Matt realized.  *And that's why Shuffle didn't smell her coming!  They've
got her cleaning up furballs from Earth, because the Tyrannos are allergic
to them!  Of all the lowly creatures, she's one to talk,* he sneered silently.

        "Step away, little human, unless you want to share the furball's
fate!"  The furball hopped a few feet away from Matt however, saying, "I'd
rather die like a furball than a Tyranno."  Systra didn't even change
her expression as she squeezed the trigger to the fossilizer, enveloping
the poor creature in a multi-colored glow.  In a few seconds, the furball
stood just as he had, except now he took on a dark brown, grainy color.
Before Matt could even guess as to what happened, Systra explained her
actions for him, walking closer to the now compliant human.

        "This weapon changes the matter in any object to inert compounds;
in essence, it turns the victim to stone.  The process is reversible, as
the original structure of the creature is stored in the weapon indefinitely,
but..."

        Systra stepped right up to Matt, crushing the furball underfoot.
"...if the base pattern of the creature is destroyed..."  She roared and
began to laugh the low hissing laugh he had heard many a Tyranno guard
emanate after hearing another stupid human joke.  "I suggest your remove
your backpack immediately, unless you want a taste of this."

        Matt simply stared at Systra's huge feet in front of him, and
wondered if the towering figure before him would do the same to him regardless
of what he did.  He decided that he had better do as the giantess wished and
begin to do some groveling soon before his captor grew weary of his defiance.
The backpack slid off behind him, and he acted the sniveling slave.

        "Please, Systra!  Spare me the furball's fate!"  He collapsed onto
her massive foot, laying belly-down on the top of her foot, reaching his
hands around her ankle, and barely grasping her opposable toe-claw on her
heel.

        He couldn't see it, but the sinister reptilian grin she gave him
from high above was enough to turn even her blood cold.  "Aww...perhaps
you will make a suitable slave-pet, little mammal!  Certainly more
entertaining than these furballs."  She began to walk back to the cargo
bay door, and Matt could see bits of the furball sprinkle out from between
her splaying toes with each alternate step she took.  She reached the control
chair in a few more gigantic strides, Matt still clinging to her foot as she
sat down in it.

        She sat motionless for almost a minute, when Matt finally swallowed
his bile and looked up.  Beyond the massive columns that were here lower legs,
he saw her eyes following her snout down to him.  "You can begin your service
by cleaning the furball from my foot...with your tongue."  She placed one
massive three-toed foot on top of the other, and rolled Matt over so he
was facing her dusty sole.  "Mmm...I've never given a mammal the honor of
licking my dirty feet, human...and if you don't do a good job, you could
be the last!"  She pressed down on her other foot, with Matt sandwiched
between.

        Air escaped his lungs with no possibility of returning.  Before he
blacked out, he craned his neck forward and thrust his tongue between Systra's
huge scaly brown toes with ivory white rounded oval claws.  Systra, upon
seeing this, released the pressure, and allowed Matt to lick away the sandy
remains of the poor furball.  Any attempt to spit the sand out was met by a
sharp increase in the pressure she applied to him underfoot.  The session
seemed to last forever, with the infinite torture only punctuated by an
occasional coo from Systra.  After he had licked the entire surface of
Systra's sole and between her toe-claws, she allowed him to free his arms
and begin massaging her massive toes.  She was humming and gurgling quietly
far above him, and he sensed the craft was beginning to move.

        "Mmm...it sure would be nice to have a little mammal footrest like
like yourself, human, but..."

        *Oh, no, not with the 'buts' again!* Matt feared.

        She stood and turned quickly, kicking Matt back into the cargo hold.
He was slammed hard, back first, onto the far wall.  Crumpling to the floor,
he barely heard was Systra said next.

        "...but I can't have other Tyrannos seeing me with such refuse,
lest they think I am not a true Tyranno.  I'm afraid you will have to suffer
the same fate as the furball, my little claw cleaning human."

        Matt could feel a warm gush of blood leave his lips as he lay on the
floor.  He could barely see Systra preparing the fossilizer for him, when he
spied a control box on the side of the cargo bay, mustered every fiber of
strength he could, and thrust himself towards it.  When Systra saw his goal,
she appeared to hesitate, perhaps to avoid damaging the ship's circuitry.
He frantically slammed a few of the controls, and one finally reacted: a
small circular opening appeared in the center of the hold, more than large
enough for him to fit through.  Blood dripped on the floor before him as
both Matt and Systra examined his options.  "Go ahead, feeble human.  Once
you step away from those controls, you're as good as powder."  Her tail
whipped violently behind her, her tongue caressing her lips as she anticipated
the kill.  Matt knew he really had but one option.

        He dove for the hole.  Systra tracked him with the skills of a
hundred million years of hunter's instinct and fired the fossilizer just as
his hands cleared the ship.  He felt his back and shoulders tingle, then
stiffen for a split second, but as he fell through the hole, the beam took
to the floor of the ship instead of his body, and as he cleared the shuttle
he freed himself from the fossilizer beam.  Half conscious, he certainly did
not revel in his escape, and as he realized he was some distance from the
ground, his eyes blurred.  He prayed he would hit a soft dune as quickly as
possible to increase his chances of survival, but as his eyes focused on what
was below him he saw that he was above the ruin he had been trying to reach!
His dazed mind only perceived certain aspects of his aerial view...the dirty
broken glass dome he was but a few dozen feet above...a round conference
table in the center...sand dunes surrounding computer equipment...blackness.

        He was unconscious as his right shoulder was slashed by a fragment of
glass that remained in the framework of the dome's ceiling, spinning his body
rapidly along its axis until a hanging cable caught him under the left knee,
diverting his momentum as a pendulum moves.  His left side skidded along the
outside wall of the great domed hall, until the cable slipped from under his
knee, and he came to rest face up in a sand dune that had accumulated in
front of a silent computer bank in a puff of dust.

        Systra cursed in Reptilonian and quickly closed the floor portal and
returned to the cockpit.  Using anterior cameras, she spied the ruins her
toy had fallen into.  Instead of concentrating on the vague familiarity she
had with the structure, she fixed the camera instead on the blood-stained
shard of glass in the dome.  Satisfied that her plaything would pleasure
the inhabitants, she plotted a course for Reptilon, flexing her moist foot as
she left the Earth's atmosphere.








Absolute Zero, Chapter Two:  Faith Healer


        A sharp pain in his chest woke Matt from the peaceful sleep he had
drifted into from unconsciousness.  Unwilling to open his eyes, he moved
small portions of his body to feel where he was.  He deduced he was in a
sand dune by the sound and texture of the region he was resting in.  His legs
appeared to be movable, but his right shoulder caused him to wince just
thinking about it.  His left arm felt safe to use, so he probed the opposite
shoulder -- his index finger easily fit into a groove that was cut in his
flesh.

        He moved his tongue, and felt its sandy texture...instantly, the
events on the shuttle flooded his sore mind.  He spat out the word "bitch"
with the particles, before opening his eyes.

        The midday sun shone through the fragmented framework of the dome
above, only marginally filtered by shards of glass.  The structure was
roughly thrice the size of a high school gymnasium, round, with a passageway
to his left nearly blocked by sand, and a sealed doorway in front of him.  The
table he identified on his trip down took up most of the floor space in the
center.  The table was large enough to seat at least twenty Reptilonians,
but only half a dozen of the specially shaped chairs remained.  He looked at
his right shoulder, and saw that the sand had helped his wound to coagulate.
He looked up and saw the underside of what was probably a computer console.

        The desire to explore the rest of the complex, along with a desire
to escape the sunlight and retain just a few molecules of water, provoked
him to try to stand.  His right arm was useless, so he rolled over to his
left and used his left arm to push himself upright.  Everything was painfully
sore.

        He managed to assume a tripod stance, crawling back out of the dune
that cushioned his fall.  As soon as he could see the rusting floor below him,
though, he crumpled to the floor, his chin impacting the surface stiffly.
He moaned dryly, then lay on his left side.

        Unfortunately, he was still in the oppressive gaze of the sun.  If he
didn't move into that side corridor soon, he would surely die of dehydration.
All his supplies were in his backpack, which Systra had forced him to forsake
onboard her shuttle.  His lips cracked and bled as he smiled widely, imagining
her finding the pornographic magazine he had carried with him for the past two
years.  The humor gave him the strength to resume his tripod stance and head
for the narrow opening at the top of the dune blocking the passageway.

        He tried a slow approach of wading through the sand to reach the
top, but whatever progress he made he lost when he rested.  Screaming in
pain, he clambered up the dune and pushed himself over the top, slid
halfway down the other side, and remained prone.  His face nuzzled the cool
sand inside the hall.  It was dark and quiet and calm, and he felt content
to fall unconscious again.

        Matt had only reveled in his relief for a few minutes before he heard
a voice coming from the dome behind him.  It was Shuffle.  He was much too
tired to call out to him, and any sound he could make would be absorbed
by the dune beneath and behind him.  "Are you here, Matt?" he heard him ask.

                                *       *       *

        Shuffle had hidden in the sand dune when he sensed the craft behind
him.  Only when he heard the engines power up and begin to get louder did
he uncover his eyes so he could see the spacecraft slowly pull away.  He saw
no evidence of Matt anywhere, and assumed he had been taken aboard.  The
shuttle was flying quickly towards the ruins they had been headed for, so
he followed it as fast as he could.  Was there someone friendly on board
who was willing to take him to the ruins?  It was extremely unlikely.  He
@would've mentioned the fact that he was still left on the surface as well.  A
few moments later, he saw the shuttle pause momentarily just outside the
ruin, then power up and leave the atmosphere.  Had the pilot of the
shuttle dropped Matt off?  There was only one way to find out the answers
to all of his questions, and that was to travel the remaining distance to
the structure.  His fatigue was considerable, but Matt was his only
companion on this alien world, and he was willing to expend the last of his
energy to find him.

        As night fell, he lost his visual sighting of the ruin, so he decided
to rest until morning to avoid becoming lost in the darkness.  Next morning,
he had begun to climb the dune surrounding the huge dome.  Upon reaching the
fragmented dome at the top, he discovered that even with his light weight
and build he would be hurt if he tried to jump directly down.  He did spy a
cable located a few meters below him he could bite and maneuver down on,
however.  He did so with a furball's usual skill...he fell on his
noggin from about ten meters above the floor.  Dazed for only a moment,
he began to look for and call out to his friend.  He saw an impression
in a dune that could've been caused by a human...and he also saw that half
of it was stained with blood.  He followed the trail to a dune covering the
only open passageway from the great room, and hopped over the crest wearily.

                                *       *       *

        "By the Egg!" Shuffle exclaimed as he brought his fuzzy little body
next to Matt's face.  "What the hell happened to you?"

        Matt shifted onto his good side, using up nearly all of his remaining
energy to remain conscious.  "You're a mess!"  Shuffle began to lick the sand,
blood, and fossilized shards off of Matt's face.  "Blech!  Tastes terrible!
Look, you just relax and I'll take a look around.  No matter what kind of
place this was, there must be some water and food stored in here somewhere,
right?  I'll see what I can dig up.  Don't go anywhere!" Shuffle mused, as
he slowly walked out of Matt's view.  He heard him pad down the darkened hall
as his left tear duct allowed a precious drop of water to drip from it into
the parched sand.

        A few moments later, Matt found himself at the park he used to visit
as a teenager.  It was a beautiful, sunny spring morning.  A wide stream
passed beneath a cement walkway before him, and people conversed beneath
the pavilion behind him.  Everything was peaceful, everything was perfect.
If he was dead, this was definitely the way to be deceased, he thought.
He was about to dive into the water when an intense heat forced his eyes
closed.  When he opened them, everything had been turned to stone but him.
The river was a lumpy gray road.  The people were statues depicting fear,
anger, suffering.  Wait...something was moving.  The concrete bridge that
had spanned the stream had become a pulsing mass of brown flesh, blood seeping
off of its surface and on to the gray solidified water.  He slowly approached
it, and it broke free of its gray prison.  A huge serpent's head arced high
above him.  The stench was unbearable as the serpent hissed and spat blood
onto his torso.  The venomous blood ate away at his flesh, and he could see
the bones in his forearms expose as the nightmare ended and his mind cleared.

        When he regained consciousness, he opened his eyes to discover he
was in a small, well-lit room, laying on his back on a table of some kind.
His study of the room was interrupted by the fact that, for the most part,
his pain was gone.  His clothes were removed, save for a clean cloth across
his groin, and there was a bandage of some sort on his right shoulder.
He also felt as if he had been bathed, something he had not done in years
of traveling.  His long scalp and facial hair felt as if it had been
groomed.  He probed his skin with his fingertips...it was like having a
new body!  He began to weep as this freshness reminded him of how he once
was, years ago.  Of how he was, at one time, a civilized human being.

        He swung his legs over the side of the table and sat up, cradling
his head in his hands, wiping the tears away.  His mouth was no longer
parched, and he was without hunger.  Everything was...perfect...

        He quickly dried his eyes and glanced about the room furiously as
fear crept into his mind.  Was he still inside the ruins of the complex,
and if so, who inhabited it and why?  His fear subsided slightly as he
remembered that he was still alive, and in the best condition he had
been in years.  He could have just as easily been left to desiccate in the
hall.

        He thought of Shuffle.  He remembered Shuffle had arrived, and went
to look for supplies down the hall from where he had lain.  He must've found
help somewhere inside...unless he wasn't in the ruins now at all.  When
he was in Systra's ship, he had no feeling whatsoever of being airborne, and
being in space must be even less noticeable.  There was only one way to
answer the questions in his head, and that was to get up and explore.

        The small room he was in was devoid of detail.  The only piece of
furniture was the large table he was sitting on; the light came from an
inlaid piece of milky glass overhead.  There was one large door on the wall
in front of him, with an access panel halfway up the height of it.  He
jumped the foot or two down to the floor, and padded a few steps towards
the imposing door.  The access panel was just within arm's reach overhead.
It consisted of two irregular triangles, placed asymmetrically back-to-back.
He touched the left triangle, but nothing happened.  Pressing the right
caused the door to slide open, arcing as if supported by a single pin in the
upper left of the door frame.

        The hallway before him was plain, metallic, and well-lit, matching
the room he was in perfectly.  He stepped out, and was confronted by a
frustratingly plain maze of doors and halls.  He turned left, and planned to
walk in a straight line until he saw something _other_ than plain metallic
doors and walls, when he heard heavy thumping footsteps from somewhere behind
him.  Instinctively, he positioned himself just inside a junction and peered
as little as possible around the corner.

        The thumping got louder than he thought it possibly could have, when
moments later a reddish-brown apatosaur turned a corner a few junctions
away, heading in his direction.  Its long craning neck just cleared the high
ceiling, walking on its hind legs as all Reptilonians did, and wore a menacing
grimace on its snout.  Its clothing was scarce, as was also the case with
the saurians; a few colored patches of plastic-like material covered
specific portions of their body like half-hearted armor.  The apatosaur
wore the Tyranno insignia on its chest!

        His eyes widened as he noisily slid back into the junction.  He heard
the Reptilonian shout, "You!" in English, as his thoughts fragmented --
experiments -- genetic -- mutation -- slavery -- torment -- death.  As he
began to run down the corridor and plot a non-linear escape route, he tried to
visualize the Apatosauroid again.  He couldn't picture any weapons on it, at
least none that resembled the fossilizer that Systra had demonstrated for him.

        The Dinosaucer he had encountered who gave him radio equipment
years ago and helped teach him the Reptilonian language, Seff, never
mentioned anything about this vile weapon.  Matt did consider him a bit flakey,
because whenever Matt asked him specifics about his home world he would
instantly begin spouting off some sort of religious nonsense.  He had learned
the framework of how the Reptilonian language worked, though, after several
lonely nights in the desert listening to his ramblings.  When Seff left in
search of a "Great Beginning," Matt listened to the radio transmissions that
occasionally spanned the bandwidth of the receiver, and he picked up the
individual meanings of words from identifying and attempting to understand
the broadcasts.  He identified five different synonyms for "destroy."
Unfortunately, the messages were usually mundane troop movements, so he
still had no source from which to learn Reptilonian culture.  He had not had
a close encounter with any of the aliens since then.

        After making a few random turns through the maze to try to avoid the
apatosaur, he decided that he should try to open the next door he passed
and duck inside.  He was pressing his luck running through the corridors of
this ship or complex without bumping into someone head-on, he reasoned, and
he wanted to chance finding a room that was unoccupied.  One of these rooms
might, in fact, house a weapon that he could use in defense as well, and it
was worth the risk.

        He slid to a stop before a door to his left.  The slow, lumbering
thuds of the Tyranno were barely audible now, so he reached up for the
control panel, when the left triangle he was pointing to began to flicker.
The door slid open, and the towering figure of another Reptilonian stood
before him.  His gaze was transfixed on the Tyranno insignia on the
creature's breastplate as he collapsed to the floor, pushing his back to
the opposite wall with flailing legs, his bare feet squeaking as they
yearned for traction on the smooth metal.  The creature stood motionless as
they surveyed each other.

        Matt saw by the crest on the Tyranno's head that it was a relative
of the Parasaurolophus.  Its three-toed feet stood as far apart as he was
tall, supporting massive pillars of greenish-brown muscle.  His attention
was drawn to its head as it cocked it to one side, scrutinizing him with
an obsidian eye.  As it drew in each breath, Matt could hear the nasal
passages in the crest of the creature vibrate softly.  It did not appear
agitated or excited, but as he gained traction on the floor parallel to
the wall behind him, he really didn't care what the Tyranno thought.

        He had only traveled a few inches on all fours when the parasaur
grabbed him by the strip of cloth around his waist, raising him nearly two
meters off the ground.  The Tyranno started to speak, when it turned its
crested head to see the apatosaur round the corner, with a furious expression
on its face.  "Give him to me," the apatosaur said with a voice Matt
identified in his flailing as female.  "There's a patrol on the com that's
been waiting for three cycles...you'd better respond _now._"

        "They pick the most opportune times, don't they?" the parasaur
replied, also in a tone even more feminine than that of the apatosaur.  She
began to drop Matt into the apatosaur's arms, when Matt kicked out against the
chest of the apatosaur and the cloth supporting him tore.  He slammed down
to the ground, naked...landing on his right shoulder.  He felt the wound
open and he began to scream in agony, writhe in pain.

        "Get in there!" the apatosaur commanded, and the parasaur crossed
the hallway, entering the opposite door, as the apatosaur picked up the
screaming human, clutching him close to her chest, trying to muffle his
cries.

        As the door to the auxiliary communications room slid closed behind
the parasaur, she heard the human cry out a final time...then silence.
*Thank the Egg she got through to him,* Pariah thought as she opened the
audio-only channel to the Tyranno patrol ship that was paging them.
"This is Class Seven Pariah at Lava Dome II, please identify yourself,
patrol leader."

        "It's about time!  This is Class Three Systra on cleanup mission
in your sector.  I've been ordered to make two more sweeps of this area,
and I was wondering how you liked the gift I dropped at your doorstep."
Systra's voice was full of sadistic pleasure.

        Gift?  Of course!  She was referring to the human!  Pariah prepared
her lie with speed.  "Ahh...that piece of vermin.  We tail-batted his
bloody carcass around for a while, but when that ceased to amuse us, we
smeared him on our ceremonial altar.  It's amazing what you can still find
on this planet, isn't it?"

        Systra hissed a disgusted chord.  "I doubt my hold will be half
filled, with the small area I've been permitted to hunt.  Have no doubt that
I will sweep my sector clear of vermin before I leave for Reptilon again."

        Pariah decided to try to confirm some of the suspicions that she
had been formulating over the last few weeks by stating, "It would seem
we are finally sterilizing this worthless pebble in space, and moving on
to more challenging battlefields."

        "One could come to that conclusion," Systra simply replied.

        Pariah knew that following the line of questioning further would
express an interest in affairs she should have no concern over, an
immediately traitorous act which Systra would have no qualms about
silencing.  "May your teeth be stained with the blood of many kills,
Systra," she cajoled instead.

        "And yours, Pariah.  Patrol out."  Systra cut communications
immediately.  Evidently, Systra wasn't adept at determining the diet of
a saurian by the inflections in their vocal chords, or she would've known
that Pariah was a vegetarian, and replied with something more like "I only
wish you could enjoy the same."  In any case, she was not disappointed in
the brevity of the conversation, as it gave her the only immediate piece
of information she was looking for.

        She stretched and exercised her digits, then went to leave the
communications room.  Upon opening the door, her crest honked in disgust.

        The apatosaur, Ruse, cradled the unconscious human in her arms.
Half of his face was bruised and reddened.  "Would you rather he kept
screaming?" Ruse said bluntly.

        "Of course not!" Pariah replied.  "But you could've just taken
him into the next room to keep the patrol from hearing!"

        "The solution I chose was the most immediate and the most effective,"
Ruse spat, handing the human to Pariah.  "Now he's your problem to deal
with."  Ruse walked down to the crew quarters they had organized, and Pariah
followed, occasionally looking down at the naked human in her arms.
She couldn't help but feel as if he were her hatchling, helpless and
completely dependent upon her.  She smiled slightly at the thought.

        Ruse ignored Pariah, and reclined on a bed to read a book.  Pariah
placed the human on her own bed, and removed a device from her belt.  Placing
it on the mammal's cheek, she turned it on, then opened a nearby storage
panel to find another piece of cloth suitable to cover the creature.  Matt
was starting to regain consciousness as Pariah finished fastening the large
strip of leather-like material around his waist and over his shoulder.  Again,
Pariah couldn't help but feel motherly towards this strange creature.  Apart
from seeing pictures and studying some cursory information on anatomy and
learning their language from implants provided by the Dinosorceress, she
had never seen a live human, nor did she know much about their world she
was now on.

        "Ohhhh...goddamn it, I'll beat the living shit out of that cunt
that cold-cocked me," Matt cursed as he sat up, taking the device from off
of his face and throwing it to the floor.

        "Before you panic again, human," Pariah pleaded in the human's
own tongue, "will you please listen to what I have to say?"

        This time, the human glared into Pariah's onyx eyes with hate
and anger.  "Why don't you go to hell?"

        Pariah sighed, but continued.  "First of all, we are friends.  We do
not wish to harm you..."

        Matt wasn't in the mood to sit and be lied to.  "Sure, that's why
you beat the crap out of me, you Tyranno bitch.  And what the hell did you
do to Shuffle?"

        "Shuffle?" asked Pariah, confused by the name and by the fact that
the human knew what a Tyranno was.  She expected him to be ignorant of their
terminology; she expected a savage that had scavenged the wastelands outside
without knowing who or what had destroyed this world.

        "Don't play games, bitch, the _furball!_"  Matt wished in the worst
way he had a weapon in his hands...the same one that the Tyranno lying to
him had around her waist.

        Pariah bowed her head, and sighed a hoot through her crest.  "The
furball is dead."

        Before the voice Matt screamed in his mind ever reached his
larynx, before he even took two paces towards Pariah, Ruse dropped her book
to the bed and grabbed the human with one enormous paw.  She flipped him
around nimbly to face her, her head craning down on him from above.  "Look,
you little fool!  Either you calm down -- "

        "Or _what?_"  Matt screamed, as tears welled in his eyes.  "Why don't
you just kill me now?  Or would you like to torture me first?  I'm sick of
these lies!"

        Ruse brought her face to within an inch of Matt's, and screamed her
loudest.  "THEY'RE NOT LIES!"  Matt winced as his eardrums endured the
assault.  When he opened his eyes, Ruse's face still filled his view.
Abruptly, his anger was replaced with a comatose fear.  The image of the
Tyranno's face glaring down at him reminded of a moment when a gigantic
Tyranno was crushing a city to dust before him.  His tense muscles relaxed in
surrender, and he went completely limp.  He couldn't fight these creatures.
He was completely at their mercy.  With his newfound peace, Ruse set Matt to
the floor.  He sat upright, shaking from the emotions swirling in his mind.
He tried to isolate himself from the situation he was now in completely.

        "Please listen to me, human," Pariah said, stepping closer to him.
He saw her toes splay as she approached, and he wished she would just crush
him now like a bug and end his torment, as the giants seven years ago should
have.  Instead, Pariah kneeled and reached her claw down to his chin, turning
his head to face hers.  "We did not kill the furball intentionally.  It was
apparently so weak that when it encountered the force field that isolates the
functioning section of the complex from the wastes outside, it experienced a
fatal seizure.  We didn't reach him in time, and we don't have the supplies
that might have saved him, in any case."

        The human stared blankly at Pariah, still quivering in fear.  When
she let go of his chin, the human's head slumped to his chest.  She
wasn't even sure that he was even comprehending anything she was saying,
but she sat beside him and continued as the human stared at the floor
before them.  Ruse went back to her bed and her book.

        "I am Pariah, and my companion is Ruse.  What is your name?"

        The human continued to stare at the ground.

        "What is your name?" she asked again.  The human was still silent.

        She placed her hand on his shoulder, and he gasped in shock.  "Please,
calm down!  All I want to know is your name!"

        Matt swallowed the bile he had nearly regurgitated, and managed to
mutter his name.

        "Matt, I am Pariah, and this is--"

        "I heard you the first time," Matt replied weakly.  He turned to look
at Pariah, but the sight of her enormous face bearing down on him was still
too much for him to bear.  He stared at the floor as he continued.  "I know
_what_ you are as well.  You're Reptilonians."

        Again, Pariah was impressed at just how much the poor human knew.
"Not only that, we are Dinosaucers.  You must believe us that although we wear
Tyranno uniforms, it is only a disguise we must don in the chance we are
visited by a patrol unexpectedly.  We escaped from Reptilon shortly after
the demise of our final outpost."

        Matt accepted her statements, whether they were truthful or not.
He was regaining control of himself, and reasoned as he had earlier:  if
they wanted him dead, they would just do it.  "I...I believe I know a
little of your story," he offered.

        "Please, tell me," Pariah spoke softly.  Matt tried to look at her
again.  He could sense the comfort in her voice.  He felt as if something
began to emanate from her that he enjoyed.  His thoughts began to clear, and
he told Pariah of what he saw seven years ago.  How the Tyrannos destroyed
all resistance on Earth, then turned it into an uninhabitable desert.  How
the one Dinosaucer named Teryx had betrayed both their worlds.  He summed up
the entire collapse of his civilization in three minutes.

     When he had finished, Matt closed his eyes, but had no more tears left
to shed.  "There are a few things I would like answers to," he asked.

     "Of course," Pariah consoled.  "I hope I can tell you anything you need
to know."

     "Alright, then.  First of all, where am I?"

     Pariah gladly answered.  "You are on level seven of Lava Dome II, the
only Earth base of the Dinosaucers."

     Comforted slightly, he continued his interrogation.  "I want to know
exactly where you came from...where Reptilon is."

     "I'm afraid I can't actually describe the physical location of our
planet.  Let me explain.  Many years ago, our scientists discovered a way of
 folding' space near stars.  Through trial-and-error, we have been exploring
many star systems.  We had charted thousands of planetary systems with stars
similar to our own, all uninhabited, before finding yours."

     "So when I heard that Reptilon was on the opposite side of the Sun from
Earth, that must have been referring to the method of stellar travel you
use?"

     "Correct."

     "Okay," Matt stated as he thought.  He had an overwhelming sense of doom.
Experiencing the destruction of world was horrible enough, but now to hear the
details and mechanisms of how it occurred made it even more frightening.
"What about 'dinovolving?'  Is that what the Tyrannos used to turn themselves into
giants?"

     "No," Pariah replied.  "Dinovolving does not produce that effect.  The
Tyrannos used a device that had been devised by Teryx herself, called a
fourth-dimensional quantum lens.  As a glass lens can magnify or reduce a
visual image, this 4-D lens can magnify or reduce matter."

     "May I ask a question?" Ruse interjected.  Matt turned to face her.  She
was much more massive than Pariah, and he began to feel intimidated again.
"How did you get here?"

     "I can answer that, in part," offered Pariah.  "He was dropped off, and
presumably left for dead, by a Tyranno shuttle piloted by one known as Systra."

     Matt sat speechless; he didn't want to reveal the events on the shuttle
to these two imposing creatures around him.  "I'm afraid," Pariah continued,
"that it seems the Tyrannos are collecting all remaining life forms on this
planet."

     "She didn't mention any of her plans to me," Matt readily stated.  "She
toyed with me for a while, then threw me out."  Ruse's silent stare tried to
penetrate through Matt's psyche to discover what he was hiding, but he
diverted her gaze by asking another question.

     "This Teryx...do you have any idea why she betrayed you?  I heard
from one source that she gave up everything for the love of a human."

     Pariah's eyes widened momentarily, and Matt felt as if she was about to
become embarrassed.  "We have no idea why she acted the way she did.  It seems
as if _you_ are now becoming a source of information..." Pariah smiled.

     Matt continued his questioning without skipping a beat.  "How did they
change the weather of the Earth?"

     Pariah stumbled momentarily, trying to keep the information flowing.
"The Tyrannos had developed a weather dominating device on a small scale, but
they took technology from both our worlds to perfect it."

     Matt shot question after question in rapid succession.  "Why didn't the
Dinosorceror and Dinosorceress simply ask Earth openly for help to re-vegetate
their planet?  Why the secrecy?  Why didn't they eliminate the Tyranno threat
before it blew out of proportion?  Why..."

     Pariah was visibly confused and overloaded.  Ruse humphed from behind
Matt, and he turned again to view her.  Ruse again put down her book, and sat
upright.

     "I'll tell you why, boy," she said sternly.  "Because most of the
Dinosaucers subscribe to a religious concept they call the 'Wall of Silence.'
This code they live by tells them they can't interfere with other's lives, in
essence.  Violence or harm against another is expressly forbidden.  That's why
one of their scientists developed the fossilizer.  It was designed to be a
defensive weapon, to allow them to 'freeze' enemies so they could escape, and
cycles later the effects of the weapon would wear off.  It was only a matter
of time before the Tyrannos overcame them.  They were fools."

     "I...take it you're not _really_ a Dinosaucer then, Ruse?" Matt asked.

     "No.  But I'm no Tyranno either.  I don't believe in harming the
defenseless, but I won't sit idly by while I'm decimated, which is exactly
what the Dinosorceror and Dinosorceress did on Reptilon.  Once Teryx had
betrayed them, the Tyrannos overcame every advantage the Dinosaucers once had.
The Dinosorceror went to the lair of the Tyrannos on Reptilon to try to make
peace, but as he should have expected, he was summarily executed.  The
Dinosorceress held out in their castle for years with some kind of mental
shield, but even that failed her in the end.  We were in the castle when she
was captured and killed, and it was I who insisted that Pariah assume the
role of a Tyranno as I had if she were to survive at all."

     Hatred began to boil in Matt's veins again.  "You mean it was because of
a stupid, idiotic religious belief that my planet is a dustball now?"

     Ruse placed a paw on Matt shoulder, and sat down beside him.  "Anger is
what the Dinosaucers needed then, but it's not what we need right now.
Retribution isn't going to solve anything.  Every creature has a right to
their beliefs.  Heh, I'm sounding more like a Dinosaucer every day.  You must
be rubbing off on me, Pariah."

     "I suppose you're right," Matt said, calming down again.  "But there is
one question that I would love more than anything to have an answer to."

     "Which is?" queried Pariah.

     "Why do you Reptilonians all resemble dinosaurs from Earth's past?"

     Pariah and Ruse looked at each other.  "That is something we cannot
answer.  In all our history, we can find no clue as to why we resemble
creatures that once inhabited your planet, and yet it would seem..." Pariah
posed.

     "...that somehow our two worlds are related," Matt completed.

     "You could always ask your Ancients," joked Ruse, as she stood and
returned to her bed.

     "What does she mean?" asked Matt.

     Pariah honked and gave Ruse a scowl, then continued her discussion with
Matt.  "The Ancients were a race of Reptilonians who ruled for millions of
years, and from whom we are descended.  History doesn't specify why -- "

     "You mean legend," poked Ruse.

     " -- the majority of them left Reptilon thousands of years ago, in search
of something."

     "The Great Beginning?" asked Matt.

     Pariah was shocked.  "How did you know that?"

     "I had met a Dinosaucer once before, briefly in the desert.  He seemed
to have gone mad for the most part, but when he left me he said he went in
search of a 'Great Beginning.'  I don't know what had driven him over the
edge, but he was in pretty bad shape.  All he wore was a tattered tunic and
some kind of metal band on his wrist."

     "Ahh, that could explain it," said Pariah.  "That metal band was most
likely one of the Tyrannos' earliest inventions, a Collar of Control.  The
Tyrannos used them on Reptilon to control the minds of other Reptilonians.
The collar on the Dinosaucer you met had probably malfunctioned from age.
We have heard reports that they have now made an implant out of the collar,
completely invisible to the naked eye.  Saurians could probably be tagged and
not even realize it until the implant was activated.  Unfortunately, we don't
have any equipment here to neutralize a Collar, let alone detect one.  If we
did, we could free some of our brethren."

     Ruse saw a light on the control panel beside her bed.  She stood and
walked towards the door.  "It's just another incoming communication," she
said.  "I'll deal with it and be right back."

     Pariah decided to tone the conversation to a more personal level.  "Did
you have a family?"

     Matt felt slightly uncomfortable at the thought of what the world was
like so many years ago.  "Yes, I did.  I was fortunate, though.  I didn't get to
see them die firsthand."

     "The Dinosorceress was my family.  She raised me, along with a few other
abandoned eggs, in her castle during the onslaught."

     "You mean...you're less than seven years old?" wondered Matt.

     "In Earth measurement, yes.  Reptilonians reach maturity quickly.  I
became classified as an adult two Earth years ago.  From what I've learned of
humanity, you are slower to reach maturity, and live a much shorter lifetime."

     Matt stared into Pariah's eyes, and began to feel warm and comfortable
again.  For what seemed like an eternity, it was as if she was probing into
his psyche as they gazed.  Again, she felt a strong motherly inclination
towards the scantily clad human beside her feet.  Matt didn't notice as
Pariah reached a probing tail towards him, but before she could make contact,
Ruse ran into the room and broke her spell.  They both turned their attention
to Ruse suddenly.

     She was holding a fossilizer in her right hand, and slammed a large panel
on the wall with her left.  An alarm began to sound.  "Damn that little
creature!" Ruse shouted as she shot the liquid-like beam from the fossilizer
at Matt.  Pariah instinctively jumped back, and watched as her adopted child
turned to stone.








Absolute Zero, Chapter Three:  Hyperreal Orbit


     "Damn him!" Ruse shouted again, cursing the creature that
could not possibly reply.  Pariah stood over the statue of Matt in
complete shock.  Her mind was so enraged that it couldn't suggest
more suitable words to say than, "Why did you do that?"

     "Because the little fool must've had an implant in him!  Systra
just sent us quite a terse message...we are traitors to the Tyranno
cause, and she has been authorized by the Council itself to punish.
She must be referring to the fact that the human is still alive, and the
implant still functional.  Perhaps leaving him here was some sort of
test; I'm not sure."  Ruse was panting with the excitement, yet spoke
in a slow, steady tone like she always did.  "We have only a few
cycles to prepare before she arrives."

     "That didn't answer my question!"  Pariah walked over to
Ruse and stood face-to-face with her.  This was the first time Pariah
had ever shown such aggressiveness toward anything.  *Could it be
that she actually cared about this human already?* Ruse wondered.

     "Use your forebrain for once, Pariah," Ruse spoke.  "The only
way we have to deactivate the implant is to fossilize it.  She may have
discovered the human is still alive from the implant's telemetry, but
we don't need him to further pinpoint our actions."

     Pariah calmed only slightly.  "Why the alarm then?"

     Ruse pushed Pariah aside to walk to her bed, and don more
protective gear than the clothing she currently wore.  "I did it to
confuse Systra, Pariah.  I want to do everything possible to reduce the
successfulness of any attack she may have planned for us."  She
donned thick blue pads on her forebody in a matter of moments, as
she had been trained to do back on Reptilon.  "Come on, you're going
to go out to meet her as you are, and I'll be waiting in the distance for
a clear shot.  She'll be expecting you to surrender to her like the loyal
Tyranno you pretend to be."

     "I can't believe this is happening."  Pariah was completely
disgusted with the situation.  "All right, then.  I'll give a signal...
three taps of my tail in rapid succession...just before I duck out of
the way.  But wait until I give the signal to attack -- I want to find out
for sure what she really wants."  Ruse was already walking out the
door in her sapphire-suit armor, but Pariah paused and examined the
petrified Matt.  She examined every detail of his form before hooting
diligently and following Ruse.

     They reached the force wall in a short time, and Ruse
deactivated it.  With the hum of the field removed from the
background noise, they could just make out the sound of Systra's
shuttle slowing to a hover overhead.  "There's not much time.  That
side corridor will have to do," Ruse pointed out.  "I'll be watching
your tail; just be sure to jump to the right immediately after you give
the signal."  Ruse ran into the hallway and smashed an overhead light
to further obscure her presence.

     Pariah stood in the outer hallway waiting for only a minute
before she saw Systra plow her way through the sand dune before her.
"Are you Pariah?" she spat, kicking the sand before her and wincing
at the wail of the alarm in the complex.

     "Yes, I am Class Seven Pariah.  What has happened?"  Her
ignorance was no act.

     Systra unsheathed an entropy gun from her holster and aimed
it at Pariah.  "I'll tell you what has happened!  That human I
entrusted to your care was needed, and you carelessly killed it!"

     Pariah's gaze centered on the weapon before her.  She was
quite familiar with its effects...the regions the beam of the entropy
gun hit were dissociated into their component molecules -- liquefied.
But Pariah realized:  *Systra still thinks Matt is dead!  Ruse was wrong.
Matt probably didn't have an implant at all!  That's not why she was
here!*  "The human?" her subconscious responded for her.

     "Still your tongue!"  Systra primed the weapon and took a
step closer to Pariah.  "That human was carrying with him the long
missing power core of the fourth-dimensional quantum lens!  Once I
discovered what the item was, I immediately contacted Reptilon, and
I have orders from Genghis Rex himself to bring the human to him,
along with the core to be refit and repaired!  It seems that you so
foolishly wasted him to satisfy your lust for blood, however, so I have
no choice but to -- "

     *So that was it.  Systra didn't want to take the fall for killing
the human, so she was going to blame it all on them.  But the power
core to the 4-D lens?  What was Matt doing with it, and why didn't he
tell them about it?* Pariah thought.  The last she had heard it was destroyed
three years ago.  Realizing now was no time to ponder, Pariah quickly gave the
signal and began to dive before Systra could finish her last sentence.
Ruse emerged from the passageway to get a clear shot, and fossilized
Systra before she could squeeze her own gun's trigger.  Pariah hooted
with relief as she gazed upon another fossilized creature.

     "I heard it all," Ruse told Pariah as she helped her to stand.
"What are we going to do now?"

     "First we are going to turn off that alarm, then we are going to
unfossilize Matt," she replied, dusting herself off.

                                *       *       *

     Matt's brain experienced the strangest sensation.  His head
unfossilized first, and it was most unusual to feel his five senses
return, one at a time.  He collapsed on his back when the reversal was
complete, and when he fully regained consciousness he saw the
towering figures of Pariah and Ruse above him.

     "I feel like a sand dune," Matt stated as they helped him to
stand.  He looked around the room.  Sparks were flying from smashed
control panels everywhere.  "What the hell happened?"

     Pariah nudged Ruse to explain.  "I had to fossilize you, Matt,
because I believed you had some sort of implant, perhaps even a
Collar of Control, that was sending telemetry to Systra's ship...she
radioed us, saying she was coming to 'punish our disobedience.'
Pariah went to meet her, and learned that you had, in fact, the power
core to the fourth-dimensional quantum lens in your possession.
Systra had orders to return you alive with the power core to Genghis
Rex so that he could repair it and use it once again.  Thinking you
were dead, she was going to blame your death on us to clear her of
her own careless mistake."

     Matt, still reeling from the fossilization process, barely soaked
in the information.  "Son of a bitch...you mean...shit!  The 4-D
lens must've been hidden in the radio equipment that Seff gave me!
Maybe he wasn't so crazy after all.  They must've been passing it
around from person to person to keep it hidden from the Tyrannos."
He could hardly believe that he had carried with him one of the most
powerful devices he knew of.  "So...you fossilized Systra?"

     "Yes," Pariah replied while packing a few belongings in a
case.

     "Well, if all went well, why the hell is everything all smashed
up around here?" Matt wondered aloud.

     "Because we have to abandon this base now, and try to
assume new identities somewhere else," Ruse stated, also packing.

     "But _why_?" Matt demanded, tugging Pariah's arm from
below.

     "We have to make it look like Systra had some sort of
accident here that resulted in the destruction of the 4-D lens, and
that's exactly what is going to happen.  That power core has to be the
only one left in existence; that's why Rex wants it so badly.  It
contains rare elements that can no longer be found, so no more lenses
can be constructed.  Destroying this core will insure this device is
never used again.  We smashed all the equipment in here so it can no
longer be used, either, and as we leave we'll set Systra's ship to
self-destruct and take the lens with it.  The Tyrannos will undoubtedly
investigate Lava Dome II when Systra fails to report, and when they
come they'll find nothing but a destroyed complex and the molten
remains of their most powerful weapon.  We will be long gone," she
explained hurriedly.

     "Well, what about me?  You can't just leave me behind!"

     Pariah and Ruse stopped their packing, and looked at each
other.  "Well, Matt...suppose you did have an implant of some sort
anyway.  You would give our presence away, no matter where we
traveled.  And it would be rather hard to rejoin the Tyranno ranks
walking around the desert with a human companion.  We _have_ to
separate," Ruse stated bluntly, and closed her case in both senses of
the phrase.

     Matt stood motionless, staring at a flaming panel across the
room.  Pariah nuzzled him from above.  "I promise I will never forget
you, little one.  But Ruse is right.  We all must leave now.  Come."

     Pariah walked to the door, and turned to expect Matt to
follow.  "I'll be right there," he said softly, still staring blankly, as
Pariah left the room.

     He could hardly believe the lightning speed at which
everything was happening around him.  First he was just about to
reach Lava Dome II, then he's tortured by a Tyranno, running from
Reptilonians he should be running _with_, and now they're going to
leave him behind and eliminate a weapon he could _use?_  He
formulated a plan equally as swift. *Like hell you're going to leave
me,* he thought, as he picked up a bat-sized beam of lightweight
metal, a fragment from the room's destruction, and followed behind
Pariah.

     Ruse and Pariah never looked back as they walked to the great
exposed hall of Lava Dome II, where Systra's shuttle hovered
overhead.  Pariah did hear the human walk quickly behind them, so
she concentrated more on where she was going than where she had
been.  When Pariah and Ruse had just stepped past the fossilized
figure of Systra, Matt shouted "Stop."

     They turned around to face him, immediately noticing the
beam he wielded like a sword.  "I've got another plan."  He ran down
the hallway toward them, raising his weapon high over his shoulder.
Pariah moved to the side of the hall as Ruse quickly unsheathed her
fossilizer.  Matt silently thrust the beam down before him with all his
might, hitting his target in the shin.

     Cracks and shards radiated from the impact point, and Systra's
foot separated from the rest of her body.  Her massive weight shifted
to one side, toppled, and she shattered into dozens of fragments as her
bulk hit the steel floor.  He swatted down again, and her head
shattered into dozens more.  "Sorry, I just had to get that out of my
system," he panted as he threw the beam to the floor.  Ruse sheathed
her weapon.

     He drew a few deep breaths and explained.  "I've got a better
idea.  We'll get back onto the shuttle and radio this story into Tyranno
central.  Systra was fighting with you over the 4-D lens, and you had
to kill her because she was a traitor to the Tyranno cause...because
she wanted to use the lens to overthrow Genghis Rex.  You two have
taken possession of me and the lens, and you're going to take us all to
Reptilon, just as they want."

     Ruse cocked her head.  "Are you suicidal, mammal?  It's one
thing to continue our farce on the fringes of Tyranno rule, but it's
quite another to play this game in Rex's house!"

     Matt walked to Ruse, as defiantly as he could pretend to be in
her massive presence.  "You said yourself that it was wrong for the
Dinosorceress to let the Tyrannos just walk in and take control of
Reptilon.  Instead of skulking in some wasteland trying to survive,
you've actually got a chance of striking a painful blow to the Tyranno
hierarchy!  That's why Seff tried to keep the lens intact...so that
one day, a Dinosaucer would be able to use it again!"  Matt could
hardly believe the hope in his voice himself, but Ruse could see it in
his eyes.

     Pariah walked up behind Matt, and placed her claws on his
shoulders, kneeling down.  "But Matt...the lens is not functional.
How are we to employ it?"

     "Well," Matt responded, "when you radio Reptilon and tell
them how you've killed a traitor who was going to use the lens
against Rex, I think that's going to make you look pretty damn
trustworthy in their eyes.  They're going to entrust both me and the
lens to your care, even while it's being repaired."

     "You hope," Ruse added.

     "It's the safest thing they can do to get the lens back in one
piece, or so they'll think," Matt replied.  "Once it's functional again,
we'll take off with it and start doing some damage."  He almost
salivated at the possibilities.

     Ruse turned to face Systra's ship overhead, and Matt could see
her upper chest inflate with pride.  "To actually strike a painful
blow..." she pondered.

     Confident that Ruse would agree, Matt turned his attention to
Pariah.  "You don't want all the Reptilonians who died to keep this
lens intact to have done so in vain, do you?"

     "Matt," she spoke softly, "I am afraid I have seen too much
chaos to be hopeful that such a plan will work."

     "I guarantee that I've seen worse," he replied.  "And now I
want to pay that fucker back.  I want to make him regret every single
person, every single culture, every single hope he's ever killed.  I'm
not gonna stop until I have his balls to the wall."  *Or I die trying,* he
thought silently.

     "The human is right, Pariah," Ruse added.  "This is most
likely the only chance we'll ever get to do something meaningful."

     But it wasn't the anger in either Matt's or Ruse's face that
convinced Pariah to get onboard the shuttle with them.  It wasn't the
thought of seeing Genghis Rex's empire crumble.  It wasn't even the
thought of giving her life some meaning.  It was seeing the hope
behind the anger in Matt's eyes, hope for a future he wasn't forced to
accept anymore.

                                *       *       *

     The euphoria Matt felt upon entering the cargo hold of
Systra's shuttle was immediately put on the back burner when he
viewed the scene: blood and gore from a dozen or so furballs were
spread throughout the containers they had been stored in, as well as
smeared on the walls and floor.  Unlike a true Tyranno race, the
allosaur Systra had no qualms about devouring the poor creatures.
He dared not imagine the feast that produced this result.

     "Unbelievable.  Death was too good for that bitch," he spat,
examining the putrid remains.

     "D'dromon cluthel renata," Pariah said behind him in
Reptilonian.

     "Come again?  I've never heard that phrase before," Matt
asked.

     "It means 'find final peace,'" Ruse added, already beginning
to wipe the mess.  During the cleanup, Matt located his backpack in a
corner, and put on the second set of clothes he had tucked inside -- he
was beginning to feel quite naked in the simple tunic Pariah had
provided him with.  He still lacked any footgear, but he thought his
present appearance looked more prisoneresque anyway.  He also
looked over the radio gear he had acquired from Seff that had
interested Systra so much...he could see where she had pried it
open to examine its innards, but he wasn't ready to do so himself just
yet.

     After the hold had been cleaned as best as could be expected,
Matt settled in one of the shuttle's cabins with Pariah to talk for a
while, while Ruse worked out all the cockpit controls in the front of
the ship.

     "How long will it take us to reach Reptilon?" he asked.

     "Well, the cargo ship on which Ruse and I journeyed to Earth
took about ten Earth hours to make the journey, but this shuttle is
much smaller, and therefore probably a bit faster," Pariah replied.

     "I almost wish it were longer," Matt sighed.  "I'd really like to
learn more of the Reptilonian language from you, in the meantime."

     "Actually, you won't have to wait," she answered.  "I was
going to mention it to you earlier, before things started happening so
rapidly.  There were a few human mini-translator implants in storage
at Lava Dome II that are probably still functional...I have them with
me.  When one is placed in the ear, it places the wearer into a deep
catatonic state for a short period, during which the language is
implanted.  The entire process takes less than four Earth minutes."
She reached into a case beneath the bunk they were both sitting on
and pulled out a small plug.

     "So once I put this in, I'll be able to understand Reptilonian
completely?"

     "It will give you the equivalent of several years of
conversational exchanges.  It will also allow us to speak only in
Reptilonian from this point forward, as the English human language
has been outlawed.  When we are among Tyrannos, however, I would
advise against disclosing your knowledge of Reptilonian."

     Eager to acquire the language, Matt placed the plug in his ear
and closed his eyes.  In a few seconds, it was as if his mind had been
almost completely shut down, with only one small area remaining
functional and ready to receive the massive dose of information.

     Pariah positioned him restfully on her bunk, and sat on the
edge to await the results of the implant.  She wasn't sure yet if it was
merely an intellectual interest or something more, but she took the
opportunity to probe Matt's limp body.

     When the implant had done its work, Matt's brain began to
revitalize.  It was as if a wave of consciousness washed over his past,
his memories.  As it swept across his mind, fragments of strong
feelings in his past materialized around him, placed him in their
midst.

     He found himself in the empty kitchen of his house, as it was
before the holocaust.  He took a step forward, and found himself in
high school, in an empty hall between classes.  Another step brought
him to a suburb of Baltimore, in the midst of a screaming mob.  He
was pushed forward another step, but he was still there.  Shots were
fired, and he fell to the ground along with several of the others around
him.  He rolled over and faced the sky -- it was black with smoke,
shimmering with fire.  It took him a moment to remember.

     Baltimore was where the onslaught caught up with him.
Fleeing from the north from an unstoppable wall of gigantic reptilian
flesh that was descending upon his hometown, he had been pinned in
Baltimore along with millions of other refugees.  The streets were
filled with people, running in every direction.  Just as he remembered,
he was in a section of the city where most of the signs were written in
Greek, when he saw the distant outlines of the three Tyrannos who
had been assigned the task of leveling the city.  He found shelter
beneath a railroad bridge overpass that read "Highlandtown" when a
hailstorm of building fragments rained down upon him from an
immeasurable distance.  When the avalanche cleared, he saw the
three giants clearly: one was distinctly styracosaurian, one
ankylosaurian, and one apatosaurian -- the apatosaur looked exactly
like Ruse!

     He threw his palms to his temples in disbelief.  He heard -- and
now understood -- the command the apatosaur shouted to the others in
Reptilonian.  "Let the feast begin," she thundered, "and let no human
survive!"  For what seemed like an eternity, Matt watched from
beneath the overpass as they toppled buildings and herded the
defenseless people into the crumbling streets.  Occasionally, they
would scoop their huge claws down and collect more than a hundred
people at a time.  They would sometimes devour the victims, but
more often they would smear their claws across each other's bodies
as if applying war paint.

     From her voice and from her face, Matt was sure the
apatosaur was Ruse.  As the other two spread in the opposite
direction, Ruse turned and began to level the city toward him.  Each
atomic step either flattened several buildings or ground hundreds of
people into paste.  He made no attempt to run as she approached
where he hid, welcoming death just as he had seven years ago.  As her
huge toe-claw sliced the building just before the overpass, the blast
from the impact toppled the overpass upside-down, and Matt was
pinned beneath its cast iron protection, buried beneath a mass of
concrete and twisted steel.  As he groped in the darkness, he felt sand...
and when he opened his eyes, he was somewhere else -- he found himself
in a desert.

     He stood and surveyed the horizon.  After he had been double-crossed
by a band of thugs near Washington, he had been thrown
unconscious from a truck here a few months after the destruction of
Baltimore.  He was standing on the mall before the barely perceptible
remains of the White House.  Three purplish-red beams could be seen
at various points in the sky penetrating the atmosphere, changing it to
that of an arid moon.  The sands were just starting to accumulate
then, and he could see the shelter in the distance where he stayed for
the next few days.  As he walked toward it, his vision of the past
ended and he was thrust back into consciousness.

     Opening his eyes, he discovered Pariah was running her claw
down his left leg.  He said nothing, and wondered at the fact that her
skin, and even her claws themselves were so warm to the touch.
When her gaze caught his eyes, she quickly jerked back her paw.

     "I see your...lesson is...over," she stuttered in Reptilonian.

     He could feel himself trembling with fear, but tried his best to
conceal it.  "Yes...yes, I learned a lot," he replied in the same
tongue.  He felt fortunate as she embarrassingly smiled and quickly
left him alone in the cabin.

     There was no doubt in his mind that Ruse was one of the
personal destroyers of his world.  But if so, what was her plan?  *Why
pretend to be a Dinosaucer rebel?* Matt thought.  *Perhaps to entrap
as many other rebels as possible.  And boy, did she hit the mother
lode.  The theft of the 4-D lens was probably the most important thing
the Dinosaucers had ever achieved in their losing war, and now even
that victory would be meaningless.  Still, why should she continue the
charade now that she has the device?  Perhaps...perhaps she thinks
I'm more knowledgeable of the Dinosaucer resistance than I really
am,* he thought.  *She'll wait as long as possible to play her card
then.  I've just got to play mine before hers.  I've got to get the 4-D
lens working and out of her control as soon as possible.  I think I can
manage that...if I can keep my disgust of her hidden, that is.*

     He had outwitted better opponents, he thought to himself.
*Like those boobs who threw me out of the truck in Washington.
Little did they know I replaced their water purification tablets with a
less desirable pill before they fucked me over.*  He rubbed his chin
and smiled.  "This is going to be more of a 'painful blow' than you
could ever imagine, Ruse," he said softly.  Hopping down from
Pariah's bunk, he walked into the main corridor.  His thoughts were
as clear as they had been in a long, long time.

     Pariah was resting against the far wall, and stood at attention
when Matt walked out.  "I'm sorry you caught me touching your leg,"
she apologized awkwardly.

     "Don't be.  Come back inside."  She stood puzzled for a
moment.  Just as he reached to tug on her arm, Ruse opened the door
leading into the cockpit.  "Both of you, come up front here.  I think
we should all be present when we transmit the message to Reptilon.
Bring the 4-D lens," Ruse commanded in English.

     "Yes ma'am," he replied in Reptilonian, as he turned to go to
the cargo bay and retrieve his backpack. *Bitch,* he spat in his mind.

     As Matt left their sight, Pariah entered the cockpit with Ruse.
"I gave him a Reptilonian language implant which appears to have
been fully successful.  He woke up without mentioning any abnormal
side effects," Pariah explained to Ruse as they sat in the central two
of the four forward seats in the cockpit.

     "Good.  I hope you advised him to keep his knowledge a
secret."

     "Of course," Pariah hooted softly.  "Do you really think we
will be able to get away with this, Ruse?"

     "Don't worry.  If I wasn't confident of this endeavor, I
wouldn't be undertaking it."

     The door behind them slid open, and Matt walked between
them, holding a knife from his backpack in one hand and the radio
receiver in the other.  "Here," he said as he handed the radio to Ruse.
"And I hate to undo your fine work, Pariah, but..."

     Wincing, he took the knife and tore away at his injured
shoulder.  He cut only deep enough to get the blood flowing again,
then patted the wound and spread the stain around his upper body.  "I
hope this is convincing enough."

     Ruse reached her claw over to him, and rubbed his shoulder.
She smeared his blood across her chest.  "Now it is," she replied.
Matt sneered at her as she pried open the radio with ease, revealing a
clear case with a cube of blue crystal inside.  "Grab him, and let's get
this over with," Ruse said to Pariah.

     A video panel flipped up before them, and Matt threw his
knife to the back of the cabin as Pariah stiffly grabbed him by the
neck.  "It will only take a few moments to open a channel to Reptilon...
prepare yourselves," Ruse explained.

     Matt stood uncomfortably for a few moments, then saw some
scribbling across the screen. *Damn, I can speak Reptilonian, but I
still can't read it,* he thought as the writing eventually scrolled
upwards to reveal the Tyranno insignia.  Matt began to wriggle and
squirm in Pariah's grasp as the image of a velociraptor appeared on
the screen, with a headdress reminiscent of that of an Egyptian
pharaoh.  "This is Reptilon Central Control.  Report," the raptor
commanded, raising a brow at the sight of the human.

     "This is Class Six Ruse and Class Seven Pariah reporting from
Lava Dome II," Ruse replied.  "I have a report concerning the fourth
dimensional quantum lens."  Matt was continuing to struggle, but
when he heard the raptor say, "Patching you through to the Imperial
Palace," he almost stopped.  The Tyranno emblem filled the screen
momentarily, and Matt began to exhibit real fear in his squirming as a
dark image of a figure on a chair came into view.  He stopped
struggling, and screamed "What the fuck is going on?" in English.

     Pariah tightened her grip on his neck, and he grimaced in pain
as he went limp.  "This is Class Seven Pariah along with Class Six
Ruse transmitting from Lava Dome II.  To whom are we speaking?"

     The shadowed figure leaned forward on his throne.  The dim
light illuminated his bumpy muzzle first, highlighting his glistening
fangs, his moist nostrils.  As he continued forward, the light refracted
off his iris, red as his hide.  He sneered angrily.  "Here's a hint," he
said in a growling, deep raspy voice.

     Pariah and Ruse immediately stiffened.  "We lay prostrate
before you, almighty Genghis Rex!" they shouted in unison.  To hide
his fear, Matt began to struggle again.

     "Where is Systra?" Rex asked softly, sounding almost
sarcastic.  "I thought I left the return of the human and the lens in her
capable claws."

     The word "capable" didn't make Pariah feel any more
comfortable as Ruse replied.  "Systra's 'capable' claws are dust now,
Master."  Pariah looked visibly shocked at Ruse's impertinence.
"Explain," Rex spoke again, softly but bitterly.

     "She intended to use the lens herself to overthrow your
glorious hierarchy," Ruse reported diligently.  "She might have done
so, had she not also attempted to make Lava Dome II her base of
operations.  We eliminated her threat, and pulverized her body for
your greater glory."  Ruse showed the interior of the radio to the ruler
of Reptilon.  Rex stared at the device blankly.

     Silence reigned for a few moments, save for Matt's continual
struggling in Pariah's grasp.  Slowly, a deep laugh grew from Rex's
throat.  It rose to titanic proportions before quickly subsiding to Rex's
reply.  "You have served my Empire well, Pariah and Ruse.  For your
actions in protecting your Emperor, you are hereby immediately
promoted to Class Two servants, and will be personally responsible
for overseeing the return of the fourth dimensional lens to its rightful
place.  You will travel to -- "

     To divert his victorious feeling, Matt wrenched free of
Pariah's grasp and was about to pound the view screen screaming
when Ruse backhanded him, and he collapsed to the floor
whimpering.  "What a spirited piece of garbage," Rex sneered.
"Show him to me."

     Pariah got up from her seat, picked Matt up roughly by both
arms in front of her, and crucified him before the view screen.  "Look
at me, human," Rex said in a low English growl.

     Matt kept his head hung low, until Pariah pulled on both his
arms, and he screamed in agony, eventually facing the viewer.  He
looked into the victorious eyes of Genghis Rex, coughing up blood.
"You will be the first victim of the fourth dimensional quantum lens
in a long time, vermin.  In a few short days, I will personally reduce
you to nothingness after extracting any other secrets you may hold.
Tell me, fool, how does it feel to be the last human alive on Earth?"

     "I don't know what you're talking about," Matt muttered
weakly.

     Rex chuckled softly.  "I speak the truth, human.  Every other
living mammal has been removed from the face of your wasteland of
a world.  Your planet is being cleansed in preparation for a great
honor.  Do you not feel gifted?"  His sneer was insurmountable.

     Matt spit at the view screen, and Pariah threw him to the floor
on his injured shoulder.  He feigned unconsciousness.

     "Do not, under any circumstance, kill the human," Rex
commanded in Reptilonian.  "His entrails are mine."  Rex leaned
back into the darkness of his throne.  "Here are your orders.  Bring the
human and the lens core to the central base on Turen.  There you will
meet with the only scientist who can refit the lens, my Queen herself.
I will join you when the weapon is ready to be used.  If any patrols
ask why the human is not on his way to internment on Halden, inform
them that you are following my personal directive.  Make haste, my
loyal servants, for I am eager to begin our new era...much has
happened during your tour of duty on Earth.  I will send you archives
to inform you of the events about to transpire, now that you are
privileged to receive the information.  Imperial Palace out."  The
communications link was immediately broken.

     "Jesus Christ, I think that was convincing enough," Matt
muttered into the steel floor of the cockpit.  Pariah immediately
helped him to his feet.  "I'd better take him to the medical bay right
away," she told Ruse as she helped Matt out the door and down the
corridor.  Matt couldn't help but notice how Ruse was completely
uninterested in cleaning his blood off of her chest as he left the
cockpit.

     "I can't apologize enough for what I had to do to you, Matt,"
Pariah consoled as she helped Matt onto the examination table.

     Matt began to strip down to his underwear.  "Don't be
ridiculous, Pariah.  If you had been any nicer toward me, I'd be angry
with you."  He laid back on the table as Pariah prepared some
electronic healing devices.

     "So...do you know anything about the two cities Rex mentioned?
Halden and Turen?"

     "They're not cities," Pariah explained.  "Halden and Turen are
Reptilon's two moons.  Both have a breathable atmosphere,
artificially created long ago by the Ancients.  Apparently, Rex is
using Halden as a prison for humans.  Turen is where most of the
Reptilonian scientific community now resides under the new Tyranno
rule."

     She began to place small metallic patches on different areas of
his body, and when she placed one on his chest he took hold of her
claw.  "I never got a chance to thank you for rescuing me down
there."

     Pariah remained silent for a moment, applying the last
medipatch.  "I did what any sane creature would have done."

     "I think not.  A sane creature would have been more
concerned about self-preservation than the well-being of others."  He
chuckled.  "You're too caring to be sane."  He closed his eyes as the
euphoria from the medipatches swept over him.

     After a few moments, he heard Ruse walk in the suite.
"We've been sent the telemetry for our hyper-spatial course to
Reptilon.  We'll be leaving the Earth in a few moments, Matt.  Would
you care to say goodbye?"

     Matt swallowed the anger in his mind, not even opening his
eyes to reply.  "I said goodbye to my planet seven years ago."

     "Very well then," Ruse stated bluntly.  "We will be injected
into a hyperreal orbit of Sol in approximately one hundred cycles."
He heard the door slide closed behind her as she left the medical bay.

     "Matt?" Pariah asked, breaking the silence.

     "Yes?"

     "Why are you suddenly so bitter?  When you first suggested
your plan concerning the 4-D lens, you were full of ambition and
hope."

     "Let's just say I'm trying to face the reality that lies ahead," he
muttered, opening his eyes as he felt the medipatches turn themselves
off.  He realized that he couldn't even be sure that Pariah wasn't in
league with Ruse in this deception, but he almost didn't care.  Just as
he planned to do with Ruse, he would play his hand before Pariah
could make a move as well, if necessary.  To prevent revealing his
knowledge, he figured he should try his best to be as pleasant as possible to
both of them.  And he knew an easy way to accomplish that with Pariah.

     Handing the last medipatch back to Pariah, he held her claw
once again.  "I'd like you to continue what you began earlier," he
said.

     "I don't understand what you mean," she said.

     "I want you to explore my body as much as you desire."

     He silently placed her claw on his leg, and the warmth of her
blood on his skin felt like heat in winter.  As his invitation was
sufficient to dispel any hesitation she had, she slowly closed her grasp
around his thigh, as if to feel the movement of the muscles in his leg
in greater detail.  He took her other paw and placed it on his chest.
Her great foreclaw covered his torso almost entirely.  She began to
massage his chest beneath gentle pressure, to feel his heart beat faster
and faster.  After a minute or two of massaging, she noticed the
movement from his crotch.

     To remove all final doubt from her mind, Matt reached down
and tore off his tattered underwear.  His penis was nearly fully erect.
Upon seeing this, Pariah took her claw from his leg and placed a
delicate grasp upon it with her finger-pads.  Matt immediately
responded to her stimulation, and began twisting and jerking slightly
on the table.  Pariah leaned forward and began to lick from his neck
to his cheek, his beard tangling with the nodules on her tongue.  The
claw on his chest began to move up toward his neck and chin.

     She tilted her head in the opposite direction, and began to lick
across his chest down toward the claw stroking his penis.  Matt's
arms rose to embrace the claw on his throat, slithering up her arm like
vines around a tree.  Pariah's tongue, upon reaching her other claw,
wrapped itself around his penis, her huge mouth soon to follow.  She
now stood leaning over his crotch on the table, one claw surrounding
both his legs, the other on his neck.

     The broad, flat teeth in her mouth toyed playfully with his
penis, but when she sensed some irritation from Matt's moans, she
enveloped it completely with her tongue instead.  The middle talon on
the claw around his neck passed over his mouth, and Matt captured it,
licking it like a warm popsicle.  She tongued his penis faster and
faster, and she blinked her obsidian eyes as Matt bit down on her claw
when he orgasmed.

     The comedown was long and lazy, with Pariah devouring the
last drops of sperm from his penis as Matt rubbed her moistened talon
around his beard.  She enjoyed its brief salty taste, and urged the
penis to produce more with her tongue, but again withdrew when
Matt's muttering instructed her to do so.

     His arms returned to his side when she released him from her
grip, but when she laid her head lengthwise across his body, he
hugged her crest like a security blanket.  He noticed how it was
slightly pliable under pressure.  He felt each breath she took as
though it were his own.  She listened to his rapid heartbeat, and it
made her own heart yearn to do the same.

     She knelt beside the table for several minutes, her tongue still
darting from her mouth occasionally to tease his penis, until Matt
spoke.  "Looks like you're going to have to make me clothes again,"
he spoke with a soft chuckle.

     "That's what _you_ think."

     A few minutes later, the shuttle shuddered as Ruse engaged the
hyperdrive near the Sun, and they were but a few hours travel from Reptilon.








Absolute Zero, Chapter Four:  The Hammerheads of the Ruiner


     Traveling through hyperspace wasn't as pleasant as Matt had
hoped it would be.  He watched through the near-opaque glass of the
window in Pariah's cabin as flares and prominences from the Sun
drew perilously close to the shuttle.  Suddenly, his view became so
bright he had to close his eyes, and he felt queasy as the glass
automatically became translucent again as the ship cruised through
hyperspace.  Points of light he assumed were stars were passing by
like leaves in a stream:  blue as they approached, red as they receded.

     He turned from the glass to sit on the bunk, and gave a
nauseous look to Pariah.  "How long do we have to stay in this?"

     She glanced through the glass.  "At the rate we appear to be
traveling, most likely...less than one Earth hour."

     "I think it's going to be the longest hour of my life."

     During the trip, Matt laid down on the bunk on his side,
hoping for the end of the journey, while Pariah reviewed the new
information Genghis Rex had transmitted to them on one of the
communications panels.  Ruse did the same from a terminal in the
cockpit.

     Matt was just about to force himself asleep when the shuttle
lurched and he slid off the smooth metallic bunk onto the floor.
There was a sound like an explosion, then he heard the shuttle's
engines reduce power considerably.  "Don't be alarmed," Pariah
spoke.  "We have just returned to standard space."

     He grunted as he slowly rose to his feet.  "The shock was
worth it."  Matt thought he noticed a look of disapproval on her
muzzle when he stood.  "What's the matter?"

     "It's the reports I've been reviewing regarding the human
internment camps on Halden.  They're monstrous."

     "What does he intend to do with all those people?"

     "They are to be sold as servants, among other things."

     "I suppose I should be grateful he hasn't chosen genocide yet,
like he has with the furballs."  He walked to the glass again, and saw
a planet with two large moons close by.  "Somehow, I'm not as
thrilled to see another world as I thought I would be, a long time
ago."

     He gazed at Reptilon for a few moments, resting his forearms
on the sill.  True to what he had been told, Reptilon was no longer a
tan desert world.  The majority of its continents were green, and
about a third of its surface was covered with blue ocean.  Halden and
Turen, however, were still mostly brown with occasional spots of
green and blue in oddly shaped patches.  "The moons are fairly close
to Reptilon.  I imagine the tides must be incredibly varied."

     "Tides?" Pariah asked, puzzled, leaning over in her chair.
"Oh, tides.  I'm afraid I haven't been on a Reptilon that had any large
bodies of water."  She placed a paw to her chest and began to rub,
with a look of disdain.  "I...I had hoped that when I returned home,
the Dinosaucers would have regained their power somehow, and the
war would be over.  Reptilon is as alien to me now as it is to you."
She closed her eyes, and a tear ran down her bumpy cheek.

     "Damnit, I hate these emotional situations," Matt whispered
to himself.  He walked over to her, and placed his hands on her knee.
"Instead of waiting for a victory, we could be creating it, here and
now.  You've got to believe that, Pariah."  Whether she was a true
Tyranno like Ruse or not, he had to keep up the act.

     She opened her eyes, and looked down at him.  She couldn't
feel the hope emanating from him, though, like she could before at
Lava Dome II.  *Why was he pretending to be so hopeful when he
wasn't?* she thought.  She was tempted to ask him what had changed him
so much when Ruse opened the door to the suite.

     "I hope you have been reviewing the briefing as I have been,
Pariah," she asked.  Ruse still had the stain from Matt's blood on her
chest.

     Matt backed away as Pariah stood.  "Yes, I have.  How long
until we land on Turen?"

     "Not long at all.  We should be making final preparations, in
fact."  She turned and left the room.

     Pariah looked at Matt, and noticed the stare of hatred he gave
Ruse as she left.  Matt saw Pariah looking at him out of the corner of
his eye.

     *Damnit, I said I wasn't going to give away my anger!* he
spat inside.  "I...I think I'm coming down with a headache.  Can
you give me one last medipatch before we land?"

     When he saw Pariah turn to go to the medicine compartment
on the far wall, he knew that she didn't buy it.  In fact, when she put
the device on, she might realize that he was lying about the headache.
"You know, on second thought, I'd better get used to it.  I doubt
you'll get the chance to treat me after we land.  Let's just get ready."

     Unfortunately, when Pariah turned again to face him, he saw
that her look of suspicion had been increased threefold.  *Goddamn
it!*  He was now desperate to divert her attention.  "Say, in all
seriousness, when are you going to provide me with something to
wear?"

     Pariah's muzzle lifted slightly.  "I'm afraid you won't be
permitted to wear any clothing while we're on Turen.  It's one of the
new decrees that Rex has instated regarding humans on Reptilon.
Only jewelry is permitted."

     Matt's jaw nearly dropped.  "You mean I'll have to walk
around completely naked the whole time?  How humiliating..."

     "I believe that's why the decree was made," she continued.
"Because humans have genitalia that are clearly visible and are quite
sensitive to having them exposed, it was made to make the slaves feel
more vulnerable and subjugated."

     "How thoughtful of the Emperor.  Well, I certainly hope it's
warm on Turen."

     Pariah simply smiled and packed a few pieces of equipment
into a suitably large backpack and led Matt to the cockpit.  When they
arrived at the door, Ruse was on her way out.  "I've just received
more detailed instructions.  We are to leave the human in a detention
cell for the duration of the lens' repair."

     "What?"  Matt shouted furiously.  "I thought we were going to
stay together!"

     "Believe me, Matt, I tried my best to convince the proconsul
that we had orders from Genghis Rex himself to personally oversee
your capture, but he assured me that we would be constantly informed
of your situation, and reunited once the lens has been repaired."

     *I bet you did, you lousy bitch,* Matt thought.  "But that
means that you'll have to make your move right after they fix the lens
and _then_ rescue me!  We can't wait until...maybe...yes!  Rex
said he wanted to interrogate me personally before killing me.  What
better opportunity to destroy him?  Okay, I can deal with hanging out
in a cell for a day or two.  Just be careful and make sure you don't
give yourselves away, then we'll meet and finish off that bastard!"
Matt was flushed, not with excitement, but with the fear that Ruse
had arranged this to eliminate Pariah...he wasn't sure at all
anymore that she was involved with Ruse.  She was going to separate
her from him so that she could eliminate her without interference.  He
was powerless to make a move to stop her now without completely
revealing his suspicions.

     Pariah could sense his false excitement again, and was utterly
confused by it.  She only managed a smile before they all turned and
headed for the cargo bay to leave the ship.  They stood mute in the
hold for several minutes while the shuttle landed itself, then a
gangplank lowered from the center of the floor with a rush of air and
blindingly bright light, forming a long flight of stairs.

     Matt was filled with more fear than he ever had been in his
life.  As they walked down the stairs, all he could think about was
how foolish he had been.  He should've tried to deal with Ruse as
soon as he realized the threat; it was far too late now.  But he couldn't
have then, because he wasn't sure that Pariah wasn't a true Tyranno
as well.  If only he had trusted her!  He was just realizing that he
could be dead in a few short days when his eyes squinted at sight of
Turen.

     As his pupils contracted, he saw that the landscape was
remarkably like that of the Earth he had just left, except that the
reddish sky was filled for the most part with a huge crescent Reptilon,
and he could see Halden beginning to rise beyond it.  He could feel
the difference in the gravity as well...his body felt considerably
lighter, but he had no trouble staying on the ground.  The air was
thick but dry, and it had to be at least ninety degrees Fahrenheit in the
light of Reptilon's sun.  Most of the buildings he could see appeared
to be built out of a combination of thin bands of silvery metal
supporting huge blocks of rough sandstone.  His view of the scenery
was interrupted when a velociraptor similar to the one he had seen on
the shuttle's view screen poked at him with the nozzle of some sort of
thin rifle.  He turned to face it, and was surprised to see it was only
marginally taller than himself.  It motioned him forward with its nose
and he complied.  He looked behind him, and saw that Ruse and
Pariah were walking alone towards a different building.  *I hope you
can put your passivity on the back burner long enough to kick Ruse's
tail,* he hoped silently to Pariah as the raptor nudged him again to
move more quickly.  It was the only true hope he still held.

     They didn't waste any time processing him through some sort
of decontamination facility before tossing him into a large sandstone
cell with thick metallic bars.  The cell was bare, except for a variation
of a sink in one corner, a hole in the floor in the other, and a small
barred window high up beyond his reach.  He found that with the
lower gravity he could just grab the bottom of it and pull himself up.
Once he saw the featureless tundra outside, though, he saw no reason
to do so again.

     It seemed that all the other cells in the wing he was in were
empty.  He had plenty of time on his hands, presumably, so he began
to examine his future possibilities.  If Ruse managed to eliminate
Pariah, there would be little he could do to outwit her, let alone
physically overpower her.  He thought about how he could have told
Pariah about his vision of Ruse and taken the chance she was as pure
as she pretended to be, in the hope they could have overcome Ruse
together.  He thought about how he was now basically handing over
the 4-D lens to Genghis Rex, and how perhaps he should have
destroyed it after all.  He thought for hours on end, but realized there
was nothing he could do at all now, and he spent twice as long
cursing himself.

     The day seemed incredibly long on Turen, and although it
seemed even longer from the boredom, Matt estimated Turen rotated
on its axis almost twice as long as Earth did.  During the first day, he
could hear distant noises of machinery, but at night it was absolutely
silent; all he could hear was the blood coursing through his skull.  As
the first night fell, a guard slipped him a metal plate with a tasteless
dark brown paste on it before he could even identify what type of
creature had given it to him.

     He licked the tray clean, washing it down with the warm water
from the sink, then examined the tray to see if he could use it for
anything.  It was very thin and malleable, so he couldn't imagine
using it for a weapon of any kind.  He crumpled it into a ball and
threw it down the latrine hole in the corner.

     A Velociraptor guard, presumably the one who had slipped
him the tray, returned and stood at the bars.  "Where's the tray?" he
hissed in Reptilonian.

     "What?" Matt replied in English.

     "Stupid lousy human," the guard cursed, and opened the cell.
Matt was laying on the floor by the sink, and didn't bother to stand
when the raptor walked over to his side.  "I want to know what you
did with the tray," the guard repeated in Reptilonian.  "The tray!"
The guard motioned as if he held the tray in his claws.

     *Don't expect me to make this easy for you,* Matt thought
and smiled inwardly.  "I threw it down the shithole," he replied in
English and pointed towards the corner.  *Why don't you go down
after it?* he mused to himself.

     "You arrogant slime!"  The raptor kicked his sickled foot into
Matt's exposed groin.  The wave of nausea almost knocked him
senseless, and he doubled over moaning.  "Do that again, and I'll
shove your hairy ass down there to get it."  As the guard left the cell
and locked it, Matt puked most of the brown paste back up onto the
floor beside him, then looked down to see his left testicle bleeding.
As much as it pained him, he placed pressure on the wound for
several minutes until the bleeding stopped.

     After the nausea left him, he reasoned that the tray had been
made so thin and flimsy and the guard became so angry when he
disposed of it because metals must be rare commodities on Reptilon
and its moons.  That must have been why Earth appeared to be mined
so heavily in the last seven years by the Tyrannos.  He re-examined
the bars of his cell, and found that they didn't have the texture, nor
the sound when tapped of metal.  Perhaps it was some sort of metal-
plastic alloy.  He sighed, and scooped up his vomit, throwing it down
the latrine.  He went to wash his hands and get a drink, but found that
the water had been turned off.

     Matt went another day and a night without food or water or
contact with another guard.  Early in the third day of his
imprisonment, he heard clicking footsteps much lighter than those of
the raptor approach his cell.  He sat upright to greet the visitor, and
noticed that his gaze had not been fixed high enough.  What appeared
to be a large bird almost as tall as Ruse stood on the other side of the
bars.  Its plumage ranged from white to pink to purple, and its wings
and legs ended in delicate pink claws.  It wore a specked purple and
red sash across its feathered chest, and held another thin tray of food
between its delicate, scaly wing-claws.

     Matt knew that this species of dinosaur was some sort of
"missing link" between dinosaurs and birds, but the name eluded him
for the moment.  The creature silently bent down and slid the tray
beneath the bars, then stood again and eyed him.

     Never breaking eye contact, Matt stood and approached the
tray.  The creature slowly reached its left wing through the bars
towards him, but he quickly grabbed the tray and ran back to the
corner of the cell with the sink.  The bird-dinosaur grabbed a bar
instead, and still fixed her gaze on the human.  Matt looked down at
the tray and sighed.  "I suppose I should be glad you got me this," he
said softly.

     "Once I heard what had happened, I had to act," the feminine
voice answered softly in English.  "I detest to see humans...
mistreated."  With those words, she released the bar and walked back
down the central hallway.

     When Matt identified the voice as female, he instinctively
turned his back to cover his exposed penis, but gave her no further
thought as he ate his food, until he remembered the name of her
species.  Archaeopteryx.  *Teryx!*

                                *       *       *

     Two more days passed in his prison, but he saw only the
arrogant velociraptor guard when he was delivered food.  He had
missed what was probably his one and only opportunity to converse
with the creature that had betrayed his planet.

     On the fifth day, the raptor appeared at the cell empty handed.
He opened the door, and stood silently.  Matt could only assume that
it was time for his execution.  He stood and walked compliantly with
the guard out of the cell and to a large tent just outside the prison.
Some sort of hovercraft was there, as well as two more raptors
waiting on board.  The raptor accompanying him prodded him with
his rifle, and he stumbled onboard the hovercraft where one of the
guards shackled his hands and feet together.  The guard pushed him
to sit on the bench, and he found himself between two raptors and
across from another.  His humiliation was insurmountable.

     The hovercraft left the prison, but never went higher than ten
or fifteen feet off the ground as it sped across the surface of Turen.
Matt found himself eavesdropping on their smalltalk during the
journey.

     "So, anyway, you really think he knows?" one began.

     "Of course he does.  No one can be that stupid."

     "Watch your tongue or you may lose it!  He knows she's
drugged, he just doesn't want everyone else to know, that's all."

     "Well, if _we_ know..."

     "Just shut your jaws."

     It didn't take long for Matt to figure out who they were
referring to:  Teryx.  Was there really a chance that Teryx wasn't in control
of herself now, or even when she betrayed the Dinosaucers?  He didn't
ponder the possibility long, when he realized the craft was slowing
near a huge facility.  As the hovercraft rose high enough to clear the
wall surrounding the camp, he saw hundreds of Tyrannos of all
descriptions in an open area -- apparently this was some sort of
military training camp.  He had just noticed some humans in the field
alongside them, when the craft lowered to land underneath another
tent.  He saw only one figure beneath the tent, a creature that looked
like Ruse, only with more of a lighter purple color.  When one of the
raptors escorted him off of the hovercraft and up to the creature, he
noticed that the creature's feet were like diver's fins, and its foreclaws
were webbed.  A few long feather-like scales stuck up from its scalp,
and its muzzle was long and pointed like the beak of a pelican.

     "Welcome to the encampment of Volna, on the moon Turen,
Matt.  You may address me as Plesio," the raspy masculine voice
spoke in English.

     Matt couldn't be sure, but he believed he recognized the name
as one of the Tyrannos on the original Earth mission, and that would
jive with his name being an abbreviation of his race.  Matt didn't
reply; he simply gave Plesio a cold stare.

     "Well, this promises to be an enlightening conversation,"
Plesio hissed, and motioned for Matt to follow him.  Matt looked over
his shoulder, and saw that the hovercraft had left with all the raptor
guards on board.  He first thought it arrogant of Plesio to expect him
to obey orders without the use of any armed escorts, but then realized
he was powerless to resist him in any case.  He trotted to catch up to
Plesio, a difficult task with his shackles.  Plesio was beginning to
lecture him.

     "If you follow my commands precisely, human, you just may
survive your encounter with the Emperor.  Any impudence or
disobedience will be met with nothing less than death, is that clear?"

     "Crystal...sir."

     Plesio whipped around and smacked Matt in the jaw with his
right claw, slamming his head into the rough stone wall next to him.
Matt reached up to grab the webbed claw that was throttling him.
"That is exactly the kind of impudence I was referring to, mammal.
Try that again, and I'll snap your spine in two."  He released his
grasp, and Matt collapsed next to the wall.  "Now get up and follow."

     Plesio continued down the hall, and Matt quickly swallowed
his pride to catch up to him.  Plesio continued his instructions.  "You
are to be the central display in a ceremony that the Emperor has long
been awaiting.  Since you have so graciously returned the fourth
dimensional quantum lens to us, we feel it is a fortuitous sign to have
the news of its discovery coincide with the ceremony."  Plesio hissed
a laugh.  "Do you not feel honored?"

     "No, I do not."

     "I didn't expect you would feel as such.  Pity.  If you were
more willing, the ceremony would go much smoother."  Plesio
continued to lead him further and further into the facility, the stone
walls gradually becoming metallic-looking, until the base began to
look much like the interior of Lava Dome II.  He stopped before a
closed door, and pressed a keypad to open it.  Much to Matt's
surprise, Pariah and Ruse were seated inside.

     He hid his emotions as best he could, when Plesio instructed
them in Reptilonian to prepare him for the ceremony, pushed Matt
inside, and closed the door.  Before Matt said anything, Pariah
informed him it was safe to talk freely in the room.

     "Jesus Christ, I never thought I would see either of you again!
Especially you, Ruse.  Haven't you killed Pariah by now?  What the
hell's taking you so long?"  Matt decided he might as well be arrogant
about his knowledge now, since he would surely die at the hands of
Genghis Rex in the immediate future.  He wanted to clear his
conscience before he died at Ruse's hands.

     "Excuse me?" Ruse stated bluntly.  "What in the Egg's name
are you talking about?"

     "You mean...you haven't told Pariah you really _are_ a
Tyranno and you're not pretending like she is?"

     Pariah almost laughed.  "What on Reptilon would give you
that impression?"

     "Not Reptilon, Earth.  I was _there_ when you flattened
Baltimore, Ruse.  I remembered your face, and your voice."

     Ruse rolled her eyes, and Pariah continued.  "And just when
did you remember this?"

     "When I was waking up, after the language implant."  Matt
sneered at Ruse, and noticed how she was the only one with a weapon
at her side.  *Might as well kill us both now,* he thought.

     "Matt, I don't know what else you may have experienced
during that implant, but they were most definitely hallucinations.
Dreams.  They often occur after implants.  Why didn't you tell me
you had these visions right away?"

     As the possibility she mentioned began to sink in, he felt
guilty at what he was about to say.  "Because...I wasn't sure if you
were in league with her."  Pariah looked away, and was visibly upset
at his statement.

     "So that's why you were acting so cocky towards me, Matt,"
Ruse sighed.  "And here I thought you were beginning to understand
my style."

     "So, you're not..." Matt stuttered.

     "Look," Pariah said angrily.  "Everything is going to go
exactly as we planned it."

     "God, I'm so sorry, Pariah."

     Ruse laughed.  "Well, that's just great.  You accuse me of
being a Tyranno, and you apologize to her!"

     Matt sat down and put his head in his hands.  "Jesus Christ.  I
hate this.  I should be happier than hell right now, but I'm not."

     "So when you allowed me to explore you, you were really
only humoring me, weren't you?" Pariah continued.

     "Well, that sounds interesting," Ruse continued to laugh.
"You'll have to tell me all about it sometime, Matt.  You would make
a fine spy!"  She had to check her laughter, lest it alert a guard's
suspicion outside.  "Look, you two.  You can resolve all of your
emotional difficulties later.  Let's get Matt ready for the ceremony,
blast Rex, and get the hell out of here."

     For the next few minutes, Ruse removed Matt's shackles and
began to adorn him with gold and silver bands all over his body, and
told him what was about to happen.  "The ceremony you are about to
participate in is called the Ascension.  It is a rite by which Tyranno
soldiers achieve their full warrior status.  It is a celebration of their
strength and courage.  This season, the Ascension is special because it
is the first time that humans have participated.  In the past, the
Tyrannos used furballs, but because of their allergic reaction to them,
coupled with the fact that they are now extinct, they haven't used any
mammals in the ceremony for years.  Even though Tyrannos don't relish
the flavor of humanity, you are to be the centerpiece of the ceremony,
whom Rex himself will hunt and kill."

     "That's some fair fight.  This sounds more like an act of sheer
cowardice than a celebration of bravery," Matt commented as Ruse
placed the last band around his neck.

     "Don't worry," Pariah spat sarcastically.  "Teryx has prepared
the lens.  We were waiting for the ceremony, just as _you_ planned, for
the opportunity to use it on Rex."  Matt didn't want to face the
disappointment in her eyes.

     "Yes," he replied.  "She came to visit me in the prison.  Did
you two know that she might be under the influence of drugs?"

     Ruse humphed.  "I'm afraid we've heard little else from the
hired help around here.  It's public knowledge that the saurian who
led you here, Plesio, is Genghis Rex's right claw saur, and he keeps
Teryx sedated because she has grown weary of him over the years.
Rex refuses to have her implanted with a Collar of Control for some
reason.  You can imagine what would happen to a Tyranno who
revealed this knowledge in public."

     "Yes, I believe I can.  So what do I do, exactly?"

     "Just wait until we start the ball rolling, Matt, then head for
cover.  We'll use the lens on Rex and anyone else who gets in our
way and make a break for the shuttle.  It's not far from here."  Ruse
stopped abruptly, and a few moments later Plesio opened the door.
"The Ascension awaits," he said, hissing with glee.

     Plesio led the way down the hallway, followed by Ruse, Matt
and Pariah.  Matt could only imagine the look of disgust and distrust
on Pariah's face as the hallway they walked along opened to a
circular room.  In the center of the room stood Genghis Rex on one
side of a small stone pillar, and Teryx on the other.  Plesio walked to
stand beside Teryx, while Pariah and Ruse surrounded Matt and
walked to Genghis Rex's side.

     Rex's presence was unbelievably masculine and powerful.
His jet black talons were shiny and sharp, enlarged negatives of the
teeth in his jaw.  His dark red skin was more bumpy than scaly, and
he had visible scars across the exposed parts of his abdomen.  He
wore orange and blue padding across various parts of his body, while
Teryx appeared to be wearing the same garment she was when she
visited him.  Neither looked at him, as they all stared forward as Rex
pressed a switch on his belt, and the wall before them split and began
to arc open.

     The bright light of Reptilon's sun flooded the chamber, and
rays were refracted through the object resting on the central pillar:  the
fourth dimensional quantum lens.  Matt leaned forward slightly to get
a better look at it, but Pariah gripped his shoulder tightly.  Rex didn't
flinch at Matt's impertinence as half of the wall facing them
disappeared, revealing thousands of Tyrannos and hundreds of
humans in a vast courtyard below and beyond them.  Several large
pits of liquid were flaming in the center of the arena.  When the two
arcing doors locked in place behind them, sealing off the two exits,
the crowd outside became dead silent as the Emperor addressed his
subjects.

     "My loyal Tyrannos:  today you are about to make the brief
journey from hatchling to warrior.  Savor this moment, for you will
never again taste blood as sweet and flesh as tender.  Today you will
become true Servants to the Tyranno cause, and you will be
personally responsible for the future of our world.

     But before our glorious celebration of life begins, I would like
to celebrate another matter.  Our most powerful weapon, the fourth
dimensional lens, has returned!"

     Unseen drums began to beat, and the crowd erupted in a din of
roaring and shouts unlike any hell Matt could have imagined.  It
continued for what seemed like an eternity, before Rex stepped to the
edge of the platform and waved a claw to silence them.

     "I will now feast on the carcass of the traitorous creature who
so dutifully made its return possible!"

     Matt nearly shit himself as Rex turned to face him.  His gaze
lingered on him for only a split-second, though, before his red eyes
fixed on Ruse, to his left.

     *Yes!  Make your move!  Now!* Matt screamed in his mind,
but instead of seeing Ruse grab the lens and eliminate the Emperor,
she walked slowly towards Genghis Rex.  Matt's eyes were wide, his
jaw slack as Ruse knelt beside Rex and craned her neck to one side.
The crowd erupted again as Ruse shouted "My life is yours!" and Rex
opened his jaws wide.  Matt collapsed to his own knees as Rex bit
down on her neck, severing it from her body in one bite.  Blood
dripped eerily from her neck in the lower gravity of Turen.  He would
never forget the sound his jaws cutting through her flesh and bone
made.  He wanted to look up to Pariah and wonder why she was doing
nothing to stop Rex, but he was paralyzed with fear.

     The next few moments were difficult for Matt to comprehend.
He felt Ruse's blood splatter on his body as Rex chewed open her
chest cavity and threw her organs from his jaw into the screaming
crowd below.  It might have been much longer, but Matt's mind only
registered a minute of time passing as Rex finished with Ruse's body
and kicked the empty carcass off of the dais to the maniacal throng
below.

     "Plant eaters have such a bitter taste," he remarked to Plesio,
who chuckled silently to himself.  Rex's gaze then fixed on Matt
again, and the sight of his bloody maw gaping for him almost made
him faint.  Rex smiled to show the human his blood-stained daggers,
then turned to address the crowd once again.

     "Blessed are the ape men, for they live to be prey!  Blessed is
the hunt, for it is why we exist!  Blessed is the fire, for it purifies our
reasoning!  Let the Ascension begin!" he roared.

     If Matt had been watching the crowd, he would have seen the
Tyrannos chase the nearby humans and begin to tear them apart.  If he
had been listening, he would have heard the screams of pleasure and
cries of torment as the saurians leapt through the pits of fire
with the humans in their jaws.  But all he saw was the pool of blood
that Genghis Rex was standing in, and all he heard was Rex's maniacal,
roaring laughter.

     Once the noise from the crowd lessened as the last human was
silenced, Rex turned to face Matt again.  He walked towards him, his
feet splashing and slurping through Ruse's blood.  He bent down over
the cowering human, and Matt jerked his head up to see Rex glaring
down at him.  "Go ahead.  Use the lens," he sneered as blood dripped
from his jaw onto Matt's face, washed down with his putrid breath.
Matt was too paralyzed to blink, though, much less move for the lens.

     Rex grinned and pressed the switch on his belt to close the
doors to the arena.  As the doors slid back into position, he reveled in
his victory, strutting slowly back and forth in front of the diminishing
view of the crowd below.  "You are truly a foolish human, Matt.  Did
you honestly think I would allow a servant to whom I would entrust
the lens to remain Collarless?  And please don't pretend that you
don't understand what I'm saying...it would only insult your own
intelligence," he spoke in Reptilonian.

     "You son of a bitch!" Matt shouted as Pariah grabbed his
shoulders from behind.

     As the doors locked closed, Rex strode towards Matt slowly,
who was already struggling to remove the ornamental bands from
around his wrists.  "Did you honestly think one puny mammal could
possibly overthrow the Emperor of Reptilon?  You Earthlings truly
amaze me.  You practically beg to be conquered.  The book was
absolutely right."

     "What book?" Matt spat, shrugging off Pariah's grip and
tearing off another silver band.

     "A little compendium I found in the Dinosorceror's castle.  A
self-proclaimed book of Reptilonian wisdom.  It foretold of this day,
when my victory would be complete, but up until now I gave it little
thought.  I thought the senile old fool had written it himself when he
realized he was doomed.  Perhaps he did, in any case."

     Matt was struggling with the last band around his waist, when
Rex inserted a single claw beneath it and raised him off the ground.
"Now, what to do with you?  Plesio tells me he is close to developing
a Collar for humans, now that there is a sufficient need for one.  Or
would you prefer to die in my jaws now?" Rex slavered.

     Before Matt could answer, Teryx spoke.  "Please, my
husband, do not kill the mammal.  I will gladly accept him as my
personal slave.  But do not destroy it.  I can't bear to see another
death!"  She began to look and sound anxious.

     "Please take my Queen somewhere quiet so she may rest,
Plesio," Rex commanded, and Plesio nodded, took hold of Teryx, and
led her out of the room.

     He carried Matt over to the pillar that the lens was sitting on.
Glancing at the limp human dangling from his claw, he made a fist
with the other and smashed the lens.  "Here's one lesson you should
take to heart, human.  Never place your trust in technology
completely."  Matt gave him a puzzled look.  "I had no way of
knowing if the Collar I implanted in the traitor would hold under
the stress of this situation.  This was only a model of the lens I had my
Queen construct, in case the fools let any of their own ideas enter
their pitifully tiny minds."

     Rex slid the band supporting Matt down across his claw, and
it tore on the sharp edge, dropping him into Pariah's waiting arms.
"Place him in one of the cells for the time being.  I may want to keep
him as a living trophy of this day -- "

     Matt jumped from Pariah's arms, but was grasped around his
waist by her tail after taking only a few short steps.  She threw him to
the ground stiffly.

     "It seems as if you'll have to do something to keep the fool
from running away, Pariah," Rex chuckled as he turned and walked
down the corridor to seek out his mate.

     Pariah towered over the prone Matt, and he looked up to see
her huge foot raise into the air.  He closed his eyes and screamed as
she stomped down on his own left foot, pulverizing it.  He bent
forward and tried to free himself, and screamed in terror as he did so
with ease.  She pulled him up by an arm and dragged him down a
hallway opposite the one Rex had taken.  The shock of the sudden
amputation of his foot made him feel suddenly calm.  "_You_ didn't
hurt me, the Collar did," Matt gurgled just before he fell unconscious.








Absolute Zero, Chapter Five:  Slave


     Matt awoke to a sick stomach and a painful left leg.  Like the last
time he had been forced into unconsciousness, he awoke on a flat, cold
metallic table.  He opened his eyes, and saw nothing but the ceiling,
until a young-looking woman who had been hunched over the lower
portion of his body rose to wipe her brow with a towel.  She was
completely naked, as he imagined he still also was, except she had a
strip of clean white cloth wrapped around her nose and mouth.  Her bare
hands were bloody, and one held a scalpel.

     "Sorry, pal, but I can't afford to use any more nitrous oxide on just
one patient.  The local should still be okay, though, and I'm nearly
finished.  Just relax," she muffled with near indifference in Reptilonian
as she bent down over him again.

     "Jesus Christ, don't tell me my whole leg is gone."

     "No, I had to cut only a few inches above the ankle.  It wasn't a
pretty sight, I can tell you that.  It would have been easier for me if it
had been bitten off.  Did someone fall on you accidentally during the
ceremony or something?"

     "It was crushed on purpose."

     "And that was it?  You got off damn lucky, my friend.  There were
only a handful of other survivors from the Ascension, and I don't expect
most of them to see tomorrow."

     Matt didn't feel like detailing his ordeal, and wasn't afraid to be
bitter about it.  "Instead of talking, why don't you concentrate on what
you're doing?" he muttered.

     The woman shook her head, and bent down out of his view again.
He rested his eyes and tried in vain to relax as he imagined her finishing
the removal of the mangled material that was once his foot.

     His thoughts drifted to Pariah and Ruse, as he now had the luxury of
time to ponder what had happened.  Rex must have implanted them
with Collars the second they set foot on Turen, and he was so blinded
by his own false hope that he didn't see that enormous possibility stare
him in the face.  He wondered what it was like to have a Collar
implant...to have your personality change and your willpower erode.
If Rex lived up to the promise he made at the ceremony, he may not have to
wonder for long.

     "There.  That's as good as it's going to get," the woman said as she
stood and removed the makeshift surgical mask.  She turned to a table
attached to the wall behind her and took hold of a pitcher.  She poured
what was presumably water over his left leg, and he felt it flow more on
his right than his left.  He heard it spatter off the edge of the table and
gurgle down a drain on the floor.  "Take a look."

     "Do I have to?"  Matt propped himself up onto his elbows in spite of
his hesitance, and saw that he now had an artificial foot grafted onto the
stump of his shin.  A smooth triangular wedge of what appeared to be
brown plastic was connected to a short cylinder of the material,
separated by a ball-and-socket joint.  Loops of the same plastic were
woven through his flesh to attach the cylinder to his stump; apparently
the prosthesis was not removable.

     "The material is cheap enough that I can get you as many artificial
feet that you need as you wear them down, if you stay here at Volna, at
least.  I can just pop another one onto that socket."

     Matt sat upright, reached down and flexed the foot with his hands.
She placed her hands on his to prevent him from moving it as wildly as
he was.  "So you just stick it on and ship me off?  How is this
possible...there's no recovery?  No swelling?  No pain?" he asked.

     "Well, everything except for that last bit you can thank Tyranno
technology for.  Anesthetic is something I had to bring here with me, as
Reptilonians don't have much need for it.  I'd still try to take it easy as
best you can for a few days, though, because that graft _is_ going to feel
really sore when the anesthetic wears off.  I should know, I had to fit
my son with two."

     "Your son?"

     "I was in a shelter beneath Cambridge, England for the better part of
a year when the Tyrannos hit...I was a post-med student.  When the
Tyrannos finally uncovered us, it caused part of the ceiling to cave in
and crush both my son's legs.  I think it was the interest I showed in
healing my son that made them separate us from the rest of the
prisoners and identify me as a doctor.  I was taken to Halden and
introduced to what medical equipment they made available to me, some
unbelievably primitive; but some, like this material here, beyond my
current knowledge.  Seven months ago, I was transferred here."  She
poked at his plastic foot.  "They would have loved to have seen this
stuff on Earth; the immune system completely ignores it."  She grinned
almost wickedly.  "Haven't noticed the other change yet, have you?"

     Matt's face dropped as he viewed the rest of his body anxiously,
then felt his scalp...his hair had been cut extremely short, and his
beard was gone.  "I'm afraid it's my own rules in the operating theater,
not any Tyranno edict that removed your hair," she explained.  "This may
not be a completely sanitary room, but there's no reason to make it any
worse than it has to be.  You probably haven't been this clean in a few
years, eh?"

     "Believe me, I have no complaints.  You saved my life."

     "Only until you pick another unlucky lottery ticket at the next
Ascension in a year, or you anger your master, whichever comes
sooner.  By the way, who is your master?"  She turned her back to him,
pressed a button on the wall, and proceeded to rinse her tools and her
hands in a sink fastened to the wall.  Matt saw long thick linear bruises
down her back and her left leg.

     "I hope it's not the same one you have."

     "What?  Oh, the scars on my back."  She washed the tools more
vigorously the more she spoke.  "No, my mistress didn't cause them.  It
was a senator who was visiting her who didn't like my appearance.  My
mistress has never mistreated me in any way, fortunately."

     "Charming," he replied.  He was amazed how the doctor could one
moment be so clinically dominant, then apologetically submissive the
next.  Matt slid off the table slowly, applying gentle pressure to the
plastic foot.  "Seems to work just fine, doctor.  How about a
prescription for some pain pills just in case, though?" he winced as he
stood.  He said the word "prescription" in English as his mind couldn't
think of a suitable translation in Reptilonian.

     "Prescription?  My God, I haven't thought of things like that in
years.  Where the hell are you from that you still remember things like
that?" she joked.

     "I was on Earth less than a week ago," Matt replied as the smile left
his face.

     She turned again to face him, dropping the scalpel she was cleaning
with a towel.  It luckily hit the floor between her legs and spun away
from her.  "You were on _Earth?_  You can't be serious.  I thought it
would be unlivable by now!"

     "It is, just about.  Just desert, the occasional Tyranno installation,
some fragmented ruins, and more desert."

     "You mean a patrol just picked you up?  The last shuttle I knew of
that brought back human survivors was about four years ago."

     "Earth years or Reptilonian years?"  Matt asked with a bit of
amusement.

     "They're nearly identical," she quickly replied without losing stride.
"I can't believe you've been living there for...God, more than seven
years!  Why didn't you just surrender to a patrol?  It would have been
better than living like a rat all that time!"

     "Are you crazy?" he spat, and was about to continue his thought, but
she interjected.  "Are _you?_  You mean you'd rather die on that burned
out shell of a planet than have a chance to live a halfway decent life?"

     Matt found her attitude absolutely incredulous.  "Look, first of all I
had no idea what would happen to me if I were captured.  Second, what
kind of _fucking_ attitude is this I'm hearing from you?  You may be
willing to just walk away from a few thousand years of human
civilization, but I'll be fucking damned if I will!"  He shifted his weight
forward in an aggressive stance, but the tread that was imprinted in the
sole of the artificial foot couldn't grip the floor at the angle he placed
it.  His leg slid sideways from beneath him and he landed on his side,
splashing in the thin layer of water and blood that remained on the floor.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that the blade of the scalpel she had
dropped was only a few inches from his head on the floor beside him.
He grabbed it and threw it across the room.

     "You're a complete idiot, whoever you are," she said as she tried to
help him to his feet, but he shrugged off her advances.  "Get the hell off
of me.  You've got some nerve abandoning your own damn planet," he
hissed.

     "_It_ abandoned _me!_  That same damned civilization you hold so
dear was perfectly happy to play 'every man for himself' and let us all
rot!"

     "Well, what did you want 'them' to do?  There's nothing _anyone_
could've done!"  Matt cautiously rose to stand and grabbed the towel
from her hands to wipe himself down.

     "Look, I have no desire to bring up an argument that was pointless
seven years ago.  I've done all I can for you, so just get the hell out of
here.  Your escort is waiting," she said cynically.  She crossed her arms
beneath her breasts and stared at him angrily through narrowed eyes.

     "I'll put in a good word for you with the senator," Matt growled as
he threw the towel at her chest, pushed away the strips of clear plastic
that flimsily sealed the entrance to the operating theater, and left.

     He was greeted by a pair of muscular saurian legs he was quite
familiar with.  A webbed claw prodded at Matt's artificial foot as he
stood before Plesio.  "Well, looks like you were lucky, human.  Rex was
generous enough to make you one of Teryx's many slaves, and it only
cost you a foot.  Now follow me, there's no need to delay your...
initiation."

     Matt followed Plesio down the hall and past several rooms which he
took note of.  One was apparently a storage room, the second a
laboratory, and the third a bath.  They turned to enter the fourth room,
which was apparently the slaves' living quarters.  He noted that there
were many more rooms further along the hallway before it ended in
some sort of grand room in the distance.

     Large soft blankets were arranged in piles upon which four human
slaves were sleeping separately: three male, one female.  Plesio quickly
turned Matt so his back was to him, muttered "This won't hurt a bit,"
and injected Matt with a clear liquid via hypogun before he could
protest.  He allowed Matt to collapse to the blankets before him.

                                *       *       *

     When Matt awoke a few hours later, he noticed that his throat was
parched.  He felt the rim of a glass touch his lips, so he grabbed it and
swallowed the cool liquid, spilling it down his cheeks.  As he opened
his eyes, he saw Teryx through his blurred vision, standing above him.
Within a few seconds, his clouded mind was filled with sexual lust from
Plesio's injection.

     He quickly swallowed the remainder of the drink and allowed the
empty cup to slide from his grasp onto the blanket beside him.  He
stood as Teryx backed away from him, and he saw that the other slaves
were standing behind her, with expressions as docile and content as his
own.

     Teryx slowly and gracefully fell onto her back, and the slaves
jumped to surround her soft, down-covered body.  The human woman
grabbed Teryx's head and placed it in her lap, while each of the three
men took hold of one of her limbs, leaving her left wing for Matt.

     He dove into her wing feathers and began to kiss and suckle the
delicate claws at the end.  The woman at Teryx's head began to lick her
feathers in a preening motion, the men at her feet began to caress the
fine feathers on her legs with their hands, and the man opposite Matt
wrapped himself up in her velvety soft wingspan.

     Matt's artificially induced arousal began to crest, and he started to
masturbate using her soft, padded claw.  One by one, the other slaves
followed suit, and Teryx clutched each of them to her breast as they
came, licking them clean.  They became a singular mass of writhing
flesh and down, and before long Matt had no idea what he was
caressing anymore.

     He hardly noticed, more than an hour later, when a muscular
foreclaw with obsidian talons wrapped around his waist and hurled him
from the writhing mound back to the pillow of blankets.  His drugged
mind didn't comprehend the meaning of the triumphant sneer Rex gave
him in particular before he removed the other slaves from Teryx's prone
body and mounted her with pride.

     He was wearing what appeared to be a loose-fitting robe, and the
slaves briefly glimpsed his blood-engorged penis as he raised the cloth
to unsheathe it from his leathery underbelly and thrust it into Teryx's
now dilated vagina.  He leaned forward, his jaws biting down mildly on
her beak, leaving yet another faint row of speckles on her cere.  With
her wings pinned to the blanket, Rex began to pump his pelvis faster
and faster until he arched back in a roar of male ecstasy, causing Teryx
to shudder and cry out herself.  His talons dug beneath her wing feathers
to the scaly flesh below, tapping her bloodlines.

     In less than a minute, Rex finished with his Queen, sheathed his
penis, and trod triumphantly on the female human slave's leg on his
way out of the den.  The slaves immediately returned to Teryx,
caressing her sore body, easing her moans.  Matt was licking the
splattered drops of blood from her left wing before he became tired and
fell asleep on her, along with the other slaves.

                                *       *       *

     When Matt awoke suddenly the next day, his mind felt like it was on
fire.  He tried to scream, but something was covering his mouth.  His
eyes bulged open, and through the haze he managed to discern the
inverted image of the doctor who had amputated his foot.  She held her
hand over his mouth, and winced as he tried to bite it.  In a few
moments, the sensation subsided and she relaxed her grip as he relaxed
his jaws.

     "If you scream, we're both dead!" she whispered hurriedly,
removing her hand.  He glanced around, and noticed that he was still in
the slave's den--he was still laying on Teryx's wing amidst the other
slaves, with the doctor right beside him.  Tilting his head back further
and to the side, he saw she was removing the nozzle of a large hypogun
in her other hand from the back of his neck.  "Now follow me quietly!"
she insisted.

     He made his way as carefully as he could over the mounds of
feathers and flesh to the hall, and followed the doctor two rooms down
to the lab he had passed.  He was still trying to remember what had
happened the previous day when she pressed a button on the wall to
close the arch.  "How are you feeling?" she asked.

     "Okay, now...but when I first woke up I thought my head was
going to explode."

     "That's to be expected.  I just gave you a shot of antidote and
stimulant to counteract the one you got from Plesio, the one he gives to
both Teryx and her slaves.  In another minute or two, you should be just
fine."  She put the hypogun on a table, and began to search the lab for
something.

     "What are you doing?"  Matt stated as his head began to clear.

     "I'm taking a chance and trusting you."  She continued to open wall
panels and drawers.

     "Why?"

     "Because you survived," she said, stopping her search momentarily
to turn and face him.  "When the Tyrannos first captured me and my
son, all I could think about was self-preservation.  After I realized they
weren't going to kill us, though, I waited for the right opportunity to run
away.  All I could think about was escape.  When my son died during
my first poorly-planned attempt, I felt nothing but grief and failure...
but there still was a hope in the back of my mind that waited for another
chance."  She turned and resumed her search.

     "Then why all that bullshit you laid on me when you first met me?"
Matt's mind felt as if it had been reborn from the stimulant she had
injected him with.

     "I take that attitude with all the slaves I treat.  But when you told
me you had just come from Earth, I found out who you were from my
mistress, and she told me what had just happened to you at the
Ascension."  She gasped as she found what she had been looking for.
"The fool _does_ keep a devolver gun in here!"  She picked up the
Tyranno handgun the size of a human rifle and walked to face Matt.

     "Wait," Matt said, suspicion creeping into his cleared mind.  "Why
aren't _you_ kept drugged...especially if you've already tried to
escape once?"

     "Because I can't operate on people under the influence of that
narcotic, and they know it.  It would eliminate my usefulness.  They just
threatened me with death should I try to escape again."

     "Then you won't mind if _I_ take care of the...what did you call
that weapon?"

     "A devolver."  She handed the large gun to Matt's waiting arms.

     "What's the difference between devolving and dinovolving?" he
asked, giving the weapon a puzzled look.

     "Devolving will produce the same physical effect as dinovolving, but
will not maintain the victim's intelligence.  If we shot Genghis Rex with
this, he would temporarily become a mindless tyrannosaur.  Devolution
was the Tyrannos best attempt at duplicating dinovolution before they
defeated the Dinosaucers.  Plesio just keeps it around as a sort of
keepsake.  Now come on, we have to hurry!" she urged.

     "Why?"  Matt eyed the hypogun she had placed on the table earlier.

     "Because there's a transport leaving Volna in a few minutes, and we
can hide aboard it to escape."

     "Escape to where?  Look, I'm flattered by your confidence in me,
but until we figure out some sort of reasonable plan I'm not going
anywhere."  He placed the devolver on the table next to the hypogun.

     "We don't have time to argue!" she insisted.  "Plesio might come in
here at any moment!"

     "You're absolutely right.  This will probably be my first and last
chance," Matt stated as he picked up the hypogun and moved towards
the door.

     "Where are you going with that?" she demanded.

     "Where do you think I'm going with it?"  She ran to block his exit,
and he stopped, giving her a cold stare.  "I can't let you do that.  It
won't help," she said sternly.

     "Like hell it won't.  It's about time she got a wake-up call."  She
pushed him back, and he nearly slipped again on his artificial foot.
"It'll only make things worse!  What do you hope to accomplish by
shooting Teryx with that stimulant?"

     Matt was disgusted.  "You know something lady?  I don't know.  I
don't know what the hell I'm doing anymore."

     She eased her aggressive stance and became more sympathetic
towards his confusion, placing her hands on his shoulders.  "Look, calm
down.  You were absolutely right.  Let's figure out what we're going to
do.  First of all, my name is Teresa."

     "Yeah, nice to meet you," he instinctively spat sarcastically as he
turned his back to her.  A moment later he realized the situation she was
creating for him, though, and became apologetic.  "Sorry.  So I guess
you know I'm Matt, right?"  He placed the hypogun back onto the table
next to the devolver.

     "Yes.  And I know what you brought with you...the fourth-
dimensional quantum lens."

     *Of course!* he thought.  *This is my last chance to get it!*  "All
right, I've got a plan now," he stated, smiling.  "But it all depends on
how much you know about Collars."

     "Well, I've seen one or two implanted..."

     "But do you know how to deactivate, or destroy them?"  Matt
thought of no one else but Pariah.  "Because we're going to need
saurian help to pull this off.  We're going to go for the grand prize, and
we're going to get the hell out of here."

     "Well, I don't -- " she began to say, but was interrupted when the
door to the lab slid open.

     Matt quickly grabbed the devolver gun before even seeing who was
at the door.  "Freeze!" he shouted as he swung around and saw Pariah
standing in the arch.  His thoughts hazed for a second, then he shouted,
"Drop your weapon on the floor and get inside!"

     Pariah said nothing...showed no emotion as she did as Matt
instructed and closed the door.  "Get the fossilizer," Matt instructed
Teresa.  "Stand in the corner," Matt spat to Pariah, who again obeyed
his wishes mutely.  Teresa picked up the gun and brought it to Matt.
Never taking his eyes off of Pariah, he quickly swapped the huge
weapons.  He motioned for Teresa to place the devolver below the table
and out of sight.  "Now, you were telling me what you knew of Collars,
Teresa."

     "Well, I know next to nothing, actually," she replied, standing
behind Matt to view the parasaur in the opposite corner of the room.
They both stood and stared at Pariah silently, each trying to formulate a
plan to overcome the current situation.  *If she can't deactivate her
Collar, what the hell am I going to do?* he thought, but tried not to
express his worries visually.

     Pariah finally spoke, eyeing Matt's prosthesis.  "First of all, let me
know if you need anything else pulverized, Matt.  I would love to feel
your skull crack beneath my claw.  Second, am I to understand you're
still laboring under the misapprehension that I have a Collar implant?
You pathetic fool.  I've been a Tyranno since before I was hatched.
Ruse was the only traitor who needed the implant.  You thought I was as well?
Rex was right; you humans are unbelievably naive."  Her dominating laugh and
voice ate away at Matt's soul.  "Tyrannos set up that operation at Lava Dome
II hoping to attract rebel hopefuls like yourself and Ruse.  We managed to
snag quite a few before getting the lens back," she hissed with pride.

     "It's the implant in her talking," Matt reassured Teresa over his
shoulder, but secretly wished there was someone to reassure _him._

     "You think so?  Well, why don't we prove it?"  Pariah insisted.  "I'm
fully aware of how the Collar deactivation device works.  It's right over
there," she motioned.  "If you'll allow me to get it, I'll let you use it on
me.  You'll have to climb up my back to my neck to use it, though.  But
I promise to wait until after you use the device to devour you," she
laughed.  "I want to see the look of your _complete_ failure before I kill
you.  Now, are you willing to risk your own life to remove a Collar that
isn't there?"  She shifted her stance defiantly, and moistened her lips.

     Matt thought for only a moment before replying, "Get it."  When
Teresa saw Pariah begin to walk across the room, she shouted at Matt.
"What are you doing?"

     "Relax.  If she tries anything else, I'll fossilize her."

     Teresa tugged at his shoulder.  "Maybe I overestimated your
intelligence, if you're going to fall for this..."

     "I know what I'm doing.  I _know_ she has a Collar.  There's no
way in hell she's a Tyranno after what she did for me on Earth."

     "I really cannot wait to see the look on your face, Matt...or
rather, I can't wait until I can _feast_ on your face!"  Matt followed
Pariah's movement with the aim of the gun, as she removed a small hand-held
device from a wall panel slowly...then threw it towards them!  Matt
stepped out of the way, though, and Teresa instinctively reached her
arms out to catch it.  Pariah had been poised to rush him, but when she
saw that he still pointed the weapon at her, she held herself back.  "Nice
try, but I'm really not as stupid as you think," Matt said as he stiffened
his hold on the fossilizer.

     "Oh, but you are, human.  You see this panel I'm standing beside
now?  It's an alarm.  I can easily hit it before you can fully fossilize
me."  Matt froze as she moved her left claw just above the switch.  "But
I won't," she hissed.  "I want you to fulfill my fantasy.  I want you to
climb onto my back and remove the imaginary Collar you think is there.
Then I'm going to kill you myself.  Tell your girl to take your weapon
and leave us alone now, or I'll sound the alarm."

     Again, Matt thought for only a moment before lowering the
devolver.  "Get out of here," he told Teresa, handing her the gun in
exchange for the device.  She looked at him with utter confusion.  "Just
go...get out of here!" he insisted again.  "Use the fossilizer if anyone
gets in your way."

     Matt saw Pariah place her paw closer to the alarm switch.  "Leave
now, Teresa!" he demanded a final time.  "I'll...catch up to you in a
minute," he spoke softly, and smiled half-heartedly.

     Teresa stood still for a moment, looked at Pariah, then left the room
with the fossilizer, closing the lab door behind her.

     "It's just you and me now, Pariah," he said as she slowly approached
him.  "I'm defenseless," he gulped, not even daring to glance at the
devolver beneath the table before him, lest it reveal his lie.  "Now let
me remove your Collar."

     "How sweet victory is," she said as she slowly drew closer.  "I'm
afraid I can't wait for you to use the device, though.  I can't control my
appetite!  I'm going to crush you like the bug that you are!"  She took
two broad steps and leapt into the air.

     Matt dropped the Collar device, dove beneath the table and grabbed
the devolver as she sailed over him, pulverizing a thin metal table
behind him.  She was preparing to charge him again when he took quick
aim, pressed the trigger, and shot her with the devolver.

     The effect of the weapon was almost instantaneous.  Pariah grew
three times her normal size in the span of a second, her clothing
snapping and shredding away from her body.  The ceiling wasn't high
enough to accommodate her, so she laid on her side facing Matt, her
massive prehistoric body filling half the lab.  The area he had occupied
a moment ago was in ruin.

     As Matt searched for the device that Pariah claimed would remove a
Collar, she began to snort and thrash about wildly.  After he located and
grabbed the device, he moved to the corner of the lab and jumped over
her sequoiaesque tail to get behind her, landing with much discomfort
on his plastic foot.

     He moved towards her back, ducked beneath her massive crest, and
placed the device against her undulating neck.  There were only two
primary controls on it, a red button and a green lever.  *One for
insertion, one for deactivation* he thought to himself.  His empathy told
him that the green-colored control would remove a collar, but his
judgment told him that a lever might provide the insertion force to place
one beneath the skin.  He knew that guards would soon be aware of the
loud disturbance she was causing in her devolved state, if they hadn't
stumbled across Teresa already, and that he had no time to debate
himself.

     He chose the red button.

     The device emitted a high-pitched squeal, and Pariah roared
deafeningly in pain.  *Shit!* was all he thought as Matt heard and smelt
the device sizzle against her scales.  He tried to pull it off, but only
succeeded in getting himself tossed from her flailing neck.

     He heard weapons being fired in the hallway outside as he tried to
avoid being crushed beneath Pariah's shifting bulk as she rolled onto
her back.  As hard as his failure was for him to accept, he began to run
for the lab door.  As he moved out of the range of her groping arms,
though, the area suddenly became silent.  He heard no more fossilizers
from beyond the lab door, and Pariah became calm, her arms relaxing.
He saw the device fall from the back of her neck to the ground, leaving
a burnt rectangular scar that he saw as she turned her head sideways
once again.

     He moved to the corner of the room and jumped over her tail again
to see her expression.  It was now one of confusion and distress instead
of anger.  She _did_ have a Collar, and now it was deactivated!

     There was no time to wait for the effects of the devolver weapon to
wear off, however.  He quickly hunted for the gun in the view of the
huge whimpering Pariah.

     Locating the weapon, he saw it had only one control, a large sliding
switch along the barrel.  *I sure hope this reverses the process,* he
thought as he slid it to the opposite position and shot it again at Pariah.

     It _was_ reversing her metamorphosis, but took almost a minute for
the process to complete.  As it was finishing, Teresa opened the battered
lab door and stared in amazement.

     Matt dropped the weapon on the floor and ran up to the naked
Pariah, who was moaning softly.

     "Looks like you've finally joined the fashion elite," he joked as he
hugged her still-massive arm.  "I don't know how much you remember,
or if you remember anything at all, but we've got to get the 4-D lens
and get out of here before the place starts swarming with guards."

     When she pushed him off of her arm, though, he looked up at her
face and saw her expression of grief.  "That's just it, Matt...I do
remember everything.  I never felt such enjoyment in all my life
when..." she choked at the emotion.  "I was in control the whole
time, Matt.  The Collar didn't take over my mind; it was as though it
acted like a thought filter, letting only certain ones pass."  She looked
into Matt's confused eyes.  "I don't regret anything," she sobbed.

     "Jesus, Pariah," he replied, bowing his head.  He didn't realize the
removal of the collar would be so traumatic for her.  "I forgive you.  I
_forgive_ you.  Look, we can sort this all out later..."

     "No, we can't," she replied, closing her eyes.  "I need time to think."

     Matt rubbed his scalp with the palm of his hand when Teresa
interjected at the doorway.  "We don't have time for this!  I barely
handled the three guards that just came by!  We can't stay here forever!"

     "All right," Matt said sternly as he approached Teresa.  He took the
fossilizer from her hands.  "Come in here and keep Pariah calm.  I'll go
out and get the 4-D lens.  If I'm not back in ten minutes, you'd better
leave without me."  He held Teresa's hand, and took her before Pariah.
"Pariah, this is Teresa, in case you don't already know.  She's going to
stay with you until I return."

     "Hello, Pariah," Teresa simply said as she took hold of her foreclaw
and observed the surprising visual differences in Pariah's facial
expressions, now that her Collar was deactivated.  Pariah still kept her
eyes closed and sobbed silently to herself.

     A few moments later, Teresa noticed the lab door sliding closed
behind Matt as he left.  She continued to hold Pariah's paw as she
looked around at the remains of the lab.

     She saw the fossilizer gun laying beside the devolver gun directly
behind her.  The hypogun was nowhere to be seen.  *Goddamn him!*

                                *       *       *

     Matt glanced with disinterest at the three raptor guards Teresa had
fossilized outside the lab before returning to the slave den.  Apparently,
Plesio's drugs had kept them sedated even through the demolition that
occurred two rooms down.  He saw out the small window on the far
wall that it was still night, which might explain why only three guards
were in the immediate vicinity.  *Rex is still incredibly overconfident,*
he thought.  Looking down again, he saw that the four slaves were still
curled up beside the prone Teryx.

     Knowing he had no time to waste, he knelt and pressed the hypogun
to Teryx's leathery pink neck and squeezed the trigger until the
remainder of the fluid in the chamber had been injected.  As was the
case with him, Teryx was startled into consciousness.  She stood
quickly, rolling the slaves aside in their undisturbable slumber.  Matt
dropped the empty hypogun into the mass of pillows and blankets at his
feet, and it disappeared from view.

     Apparently, Teryx didn't notice him immediately, so Matt spoke.
"Listen.  I don't know how long it has been since you've been
conscious, but we've got to act fast.  You've got to tell me where the 4-D
lens is, and we've got to get out of here."

     Her pointed beak turned around slowly to face him.  When she gazed
at him, he noticed for the first time that her eyes had two pupils.  "Who
are you?" she replied softly and monotonously.

     Matt rolled his eyes and grabbed her wing.  "Look, we don't have
time for formal introductions...didn't you hear what I just said?
We've got to get the lens and get out of here before more guards come!"

     "I'll gladly take you to it," a deep voice said from behind him.  He
turned to see Genghis Rex fill the doorway to the slave's den.  "Then
I'll show you exactly what it does.  Bring him to me!" he commanded.

     Teryx obeyed and grabbed Matt's shoulders.  *Goddamn it!* he
screamed inside.  *There must not have been enough stimulant left in
that hypogun to reverse the effects in her!*

     "Who is he?" she asked again in a droning voice, this time directing
her query to Rex.

     "Who is whom?  I don't see anything here.  At least there won't be
in a few moments," he replied.  He escorted Teryx and Matt out of the
room and down to the very end of the hallway, past a dozen or so more
rooms with closed arches.  It opened to a large hemispheric room, with
a small glass portal in the ceiling through which the night sky could be
seen.  Various weapons and devices were hanging on the curved wall,
interspersed by illuminating torches.  In the center of the wall opposite
the entrance was the fourth dimensional quantum lens.  "Fasten his arms
and legs together, and make him kneel before his master," he instructed
his Queen.

     Matt began to think that perhaps he had made one final, fatal
mistake.  Perhaps Teryx wasn't drugged at all, like he and the others
had been led to believe.  Perhaps she really _was_ the Emperor's
faithful bride, the final trap to ensnare rebellion.

     While Rex walked across the great room to retrieve the lens, Teryx
removed some shackles from the wall near her and forced Matt to the
ground on his stomach.  She made sure that Rex's back was still turned,
then placed the cuffs loosely around his wrists and ankles -- without
fastening them! -- and positioned him upright on his knees.  She looked
into his eyes for the last time, and Matt felt an incredible outpouring of
silent grief from her.  He closed his eyes as she closed hers, then he
heard her walk towards her Emperor.  Neither was aware of the other's
duplicate thought:  *Thank you.*

     As she stood beside him, Rex turned around with the lens in both his
claws.  "Time to finish what we began, my Queen," he stated
triumphantly.  "To think that this last scrap of flesh is all that remains
of Earth's resistance.  How pleased the Ancients will be when they arrive!
We are so very close to completing their Task they have appointed us,
cleansing every star system in our reach, that they may bring us the
peace and prosperity of infinite wisdom...the Great Beginning."

     Rex held the lens before him as the tiny cube inside began to spin,
giving off a faint blue glow.  Matt bowed his head and closed his eyes
even tighter.

     "Become the insignificance that you are," Rex exclaimed softly, his
words echoing through the dome.  Matt heard a soft hum grow louder
and louder, then he shook in surprise as he heard a loud snap.  His
spasm shook his wrist manacles loose, and he heard them fall to the
floor on either side of him.  In terror, he opened his eyes, but saw that
Rex's eyes were wider than his own.

     His gaze fell to Rex's right leg, and he saw that Teryx had inserted a
long blade into it.  For a split-second, Matt noticed the bare spot on the
wall behind Rex from which she had taken the sword, then he saw the
look of utter disgust on Teryx's face as she eyed the Emperor.  She
returned his glance briefly, then used her free claw to push the lens out
of Rex's loose grip.  It slid across the floor towards Matt, its glow and
hum waning, and Matt threw the shackles off from behind him.

     Rex was still standing motionless, his arms outstretched, his eyes
wide, his jaw slightly opened.  Matt got up and ran towards the lens'
resting place in the center of the dome and had just reached it when Rex
grabbed the handle of the blade in his leg with a lightning-fast
maneuver.  Matt looked up at their painful embrace as he heard the
bones in Teryx's delicate wing-claw snap like dry twigs as Rex's
massive talons crushed them as they both gripped the sword.  She
maintained her eye contact and sneer in spite of the pain, though, as Rex
turned his head to sneer right back, slowly pulling the blade from his
muscled leg.

     Matt realized he had been staring at them for several seconds, before
he snapped out of it and picked up the lens as Rex removed the blade
completely.  Still maintaining her eye contact with Rex, Teryx shouted,
"Go to the Dinosorceror's castle.  There you will find what you seek.
_Go!_"  Matt remained motionless for a second, longing for one final
glimpse into her eyes, but then turned and ran.

     Matt prepared himself to block out the sounds he was sure he would
hear, ignoring everything except for his own irregular footsteps on the
stone floor.  He ran as fast as he could without stumbling on his
prosthesis.

     "It was my love for you, and for humanity that gave you what you
wanted," Teryx cried as Rex released her mangled claw and threw the
blade down.  "But you perverted it with your wretched philosophy of
the Ancients.  You don't have the right to commit genocide!  No one
does!"

     Rex backhanded her, and she sailed to the center of the room,
landing on her back.  "And you don't have the right to hold me hostage
to your insane beliefs any longer!" she shouted, as she stood and began
to flap her wings.  Rex tried in vain to grab her feathery tail, but he
groped at air as she crashed through the glass dome in the ceiling,
showering him with crystalline shards.

     "You will return, Teryx!  I promise you that!  I PROMISE YOU!" he
screamed as he fumbled in fury for the dinovolution switch on his
breastplate beneath his robe.  He roared as he activated it, and within
seconds assumed the form of a cretaceous tyrannosaur, his tattered
clothing slowly drifting to the floor.  He smashed his head through the
remains of the dome, and continued his roar as he thrashed and
pulverized his weapons display room.  When the dust settled, nothing
remained of the structure as he drew a deep breath and roared again as
Reptilon's sun began to rise over the horizon.

                                *       *       *

     "What in God's name was that?" Teresa shouted as she ran down the
hall with Pariah and Matt towards the hangar bay.  "Revenge," Matt
said from Pariah's arms as she carried him and the lens in mutual
protection.

     They encountered no other guards on the way to the shuttle, although
they heard other Tyrannos finally begin to mobilize in their rooms
behind them.  Apparently, loud noises must have been commonplace in
the palace, but the thundering destruction coming from the opposite end
of the hall must have been too much for the denizens to accept.  Still,
Matt couldn't help but wonder again how completely confident Rex was
over his servants in his palace here that so few guards were employed.

     As they boarded the shuttle and entered the cockpit, they saw Plesio
running into the hangar bay through the large translucent viewport
before them.  "We've got to disable the other ships here so we can't be
followed," Matt suggested.

     "Leave everything to me," Pariah replied, as she put Matt back down
on the floor and sat in the control chair, quickly activating the shuttle's
engines.  They lifted off a moment later, and Matt watched as bursts of
energy from the shuttle's particle cannons battered the two remaining
ships in the bay.

     When they were sailing clear through the early morning sky a few
moments later, Matt collapsed in a control chair, exhaling heavily.  "We
have to get to the Dinosorceror's castle on Reptilon," he huffed.

     "Why?" asked Teresa.

     "It was the last thing Teryx said to me.  She said I would 'find my
answers there.'  The only problem is that Rex knows that's going to be
our next destination as well," Matt replied.

     "Then we've got to hide out somewhere for a while, until the tension
clears," Pariah stated.  "Any suggestions?"

     "Well, it obviously has to be someplace that Rex wouldn't think of
looking for us, as well as someplace that he wouldn't know we would
pick because of that.  Did that make any sense?"  Matt asked.  "Not
really," Teresa replied, "but I see what you mean.  But here's a thought:
why don't we just go for what we're after now and use the lens on
anyone who gets in our way?"

     "Because the lens can't be used continuously; it needs time to
recharge," Pariah explained.  "We can't use it against a constant
onslaught of Tyranno soldiers."

     "Well, you two know more about what's on Turen that I do,"  Matt
shrugged.  "Let me know what you come up with, because I have _got_
to get some rest.  This foot is getting really sore from the workout it's
been getting."  He stood, placed the lens on the chair he had been sitting
on, and hobbled back to the cabin Pariah and he had been staying in on
the voyage to Turen.

     He moistened a towel with some water from the wall dispenser and
wrapped it around the base of his left leg.  Grabbing a food bar from the
same dispenser, he laid back on the stiff plank Pariah referred to as a
bed, and ate half of it before sleep overcame him once again.

                                *       *       *

     "You can't be asleep again already!" Teresa shouted and giggled as
she shook Matt's arm vigorously.  He simply muttered, "I don't think
I'll ever adjust to the weird days and nights here.  Hey...!"

     He opened his eyes, and saw that he was clothed!  A single piece of
tough, thick fabric began at his knees, extended through a belt at his
waist, and looped over his head and down his back.  The blue tunic and
yellow belt were accompanied by black boots that almost reached his
knees.

     "You're a heavy sleeper," she said as she smiled.  She was wearing a
similar outfit, in green with a black belt.  "Those boots will help support
your artificial ankle."

     "But where did you get all this?  You couldn't have just made it," he
asked as he swung his legs around and stood beside her, examining the
outfit.

     "Come and see for yourself."  She led him to the viewport of the
cabin, and he saw a fair-sized facility in ruins standing alone in the
desert sands, vividly illuminated by the midday sun.  "What is it?" he
asked.

     "It was a temporary internment camp that was used years ago when
they first started to ship humans here from Earth.  Before Rex decided
to keep us all naked," she mused, "these are the clothes we were given
to wear.  There is a small supply of them still down there, along with
some other things you might want to see," she stated, her tone lowering.
"Pariah's still searching the complex now."

     He followed her out of the shuttle, temporarily overwhelmed by the heat
and sunlight, before reaching the shade of the entrance.  When Matt
looked back at the shuttle he had just stepped off of, though, he saw
nothing but the shifting sands.  "What gives?" he shouted above the
desert winds.

     "It's some sort of invisibility screen that Pariah activated when we
landed.  Nothing but the best!" she replied as they went further inside
the crumbling structure to escape the elements.  She pointed out rooms
along the way, some holding the varied belongings of the people who
had passed through...clothes, toys, and backpacks covered by years
of dusty sand...and some holding the remains of the people themselves.

     "It's like a perverse Ellis Island," he remarked to her as he viewed
what appeared to be the mummified corpses of a family of four huddled
in a corner.  "Come on, we'd better catch up to Pariah," Teresa said as
she tugged at his tunic.

     As they turned the next corner in the hallway, they saw the silhouette
of Pariah crouched down in the center of the hall, apparently examining
something on the floor.  The sunlight flooding the opposite end of the
hall was enough to blind them.  When Matt approached the kneeling
Pariah and touched her shoulder, all he felt was rough stone.

     Before he could register his shock, a tall figure stepped out of a room
further down the hallway.  As it approached, he noticed in the bright
glare that it was not built as thick and bulky as the typical Reptilonian
was, but shared their height.  He also noticed that the creature's tail was
equally thin its entire length.  Only when the creature stood directly
before him did it block out enough of the light from behind it for him to
see that its body was covered with matted tan fur, not scales.  It wore
criss-crossed strips of black material over its entire body, starting as a
simple skull cap and winding their way down its legs to end as sandals
on its furry, padded feet.

     Two large incisors protruded down from its upper lip, and slid beside
two smaller ones extending from its lower jaw as it spoke.  "Stand back,
human, while I deal with your master," it said in a growling, raspy voice
as it raised a mace over its shoulder.








Absolute Zero, Chapter Six:  Weight of the World


        "Stop!" Matt shouted and placed himself between the falling mace
and Pariah.  "You don't know what you're doing!"

        "You're full of drugs...now stand aside!" the creature said as it
tossed Matt to the wall with its free hand.  Matt quickly resumed his
position as it recoiled the weapon for another swing.  "You've got to listen
to me!  She's not a Tyranno and I'm not drugged!  We just escaped from
Volna!"

        *Like it matters whether she's a Dinosaucer or Tyranno,* the
creature thought, and was about to smash right through the human to get
to the stone behind him when it stopped as it heard the name Volna.  Its
muscles relaxed, and the mace rested against its thigh.  "What do you
know of Volna, human?"

        "Please," Matt slavered.  "Please unfossilize her.  We're not a
threat.  Please."

        "Tell me what you know about Volna!" the creature demanded
again.  "We don't know anything about it," Teresa added, moving to
Pariah's side.  "But she does.  Unfossilize her, and she'll tell you anything
you want to know.  My friend speaks the truth.  We are outcasts...like
yourself."

        The creature's eyes widened slightly, then it proceeded to drop the
mace and draw its sidearm.  "If you lie, you all become dust."  The beam
enveloped Pariah, and as she became flesh again she sprawled to the dusty
floor, moaning.  "Tell me who you are and why you are here," it
demanded to the recovering Pariah.

        She looked up in response to the voice.  "A Sabertooth?" she
muttered.

        "The last thing you expected to see, isn't it lizard?  You thought
we were gone for good, didn't you?"  The creature grabbed the dazed
Pariah by the arm and forced her to her feet, holding the barrel of the
fossilizer to her neck.  "You've got one more chance.  Tell me who you
are."

        "Her name is Pariah; she's a Dinosaucer.  My name is Matt, and
this is Teresa," Matt said as he remained by Pariah's side.

        "Why are you here?" the creature demanded again.

        "We just escaped from Volna, from the Ascension," Teresa said.
"My God, I never thought I'd see a Sabertooth..."

        The creature's penetrating stare was transferred from Pariah to
Teresa.  "And what do _you_ know of the Sabertooths, human?"

        "My former Mistress was once on a task force whose duty was to
eliminate the Sabertooth threat.  She regarded you as formidable
warriors."

        "Would someone care to fill me in?" Matt whispered to Teresa.

        The creature tossed Pariah to the far wall, and inflated its chest
with pride.  "I am Gydon, Sixteenth Male of the Second Clan of
Sabertooth.  Despite the best efforts of both Tyranno and Dinosaucer, I
have survived to continue the battle against the deceptive lizards to regain
our homeland."

        "Homeland?" Matt said to Teresa, but Pariah responded.  "The
Sabertooths were spawned from the Ancients, just as we were.  All races
shared Reptilon for eons, until the Sabertooths sought to dominate," she
sneered.

        "Lies!" Gydon shouted.  "The lizards were the ones who refused to
coexist!  They drove us from our homes!"

        Pariah continued, ignoring Gydon.  "Many years ago, the
Sabertooths became so powerful that Dinosaucer and Tyranno united to
drive them from Reptilon.  Ever since, they have been living in space,
occasionally raiding transport ships for supplies like the pirates they are."

        "I should cut you down now, lizard," Gydon hissed, sheathing his
fossilizer and unsheathing his foreclaws.  "You see?" Pariah spat.
"Needlessly aggressive, as always!"

        "That's enough!" Matt shouted, surprising himself.  "Look, I don't
know what has gone on in the past between your two races, but there's
only one group we should be fighting now, and that's the Tyrannos."

        "Fight?  By the side of a lizard?  Never!" Gydon howled.  "No one
is inviting you, Sabertooth," Pariah hissed.

        Teresa spoke and broke up their posturing, only to assume a
similar stance.  "Enough of this!  What do you intend to do, Gydon?  Talk
us to death?  Or are you going to kill us in cold blood like the honorless
creature you are?  Come on!" she shouted.

        "Are you out of your fucking mind?" Matt cried above the growing
roar from Gydon.  "Trust me," Teresa mouthed.

        Eventually, Gydon's roar subsided, becoming a growling laughter.
"It has been too long since I have conversed with a mammal as fierce as
you, human!  By what name do you go again?"

        "Teresa."  She smiled at Matt.  "Hey, after living with an expert on
Sabertooths, some of it is bound to rub off," she whispered.  "They respect
aggressiveness more than anything else."

        "Come, Teresa!  Let us feast what may be our last, and you can tell
me the story of how you came to this desolate place!"  Gydon's demeanor
had completely changed as he ignored everything but Teresa.  Matt and
Pariah could do little but gather their wits and hesitantly follow Gydon
and Teresa down the corridor to a room at the end.

                                *       *       *

        "And she plunged the dagger into his leg?  I have never heard such
stories of reptilian courage in all my days!" Gydon shouted as the group
sat around a large wood-fueled grill in the center of the room, listening as
Matt told them of what had happened in the palace not long ago,
interspersed by Gydon's many comments.  Over the course of the
oncoming evening, Gydon had quickly accepted them; partly because he
had not been in contact with any friendly forces in years, and partly
because he respected their accomplishments of the past few days...more
than he had ever accomplished battling the Tyrannos.

        Matt concluded.  "I ran out of the room with lens as they stood
together.  We heard the building crumble behind us as we made our
escape, and I can only assume that she is dead now," Matt said softly.
"I'll never know if the stories about her being responsible for the
enslavement of Earth are true, but I do know this:  she gave her life to get
us this lens, and to tell me that there's something at the Dinosorceror's
castle that I have to see."

        "And I as well, Matthew," Gydon interrupted.  "Perhaps the
Dinosaucers and the Sabertooths have been fighting a futile battle with
one another, mutually deceived by the Tyrannos.  Perhaps what has gone
before between our cultures has been clouded by time."  He chuckled.
"Or perhaps I have been here in this outpost for far too long!"

        Teresa began a conversation with Gydon, interrogating him for his
own story of how he came to these ruins, but Matt saw the look of concern
on Pariah's face, and noticed how she had been particularly silent the
entire evening, sitting in the corner.  He crawled over to her as Gydon and
Teresa became engrossed in discussion.

        "You don't trust him, do you?" he asked.

        Pariah looked down at him.  "Should I?"  She placed the cup she
was holding to her side.  "Doesn't it seem strange to you that he suddenly
became so accepting of Teresa and ourselves?"  She crossed her arms.  "I
had been brought up by the Dinosorceress to believe that the Sabertooths
were just as much our enemy as the Tyrannos.  I have never, ever doubted
her teachings in the past.  Do you think it would be wise that I begin?"

        "I don't want you to do anything that you don't think is right.  In
fact, having you alert and monitoring Gydon's actions isn't such a bad
idea."  He nuzzled beside her.  "All I ask is that you don't start any fights
with him, or get him riled.  I don't think I could count on Teresa to be as
wary," he chuckled.  "If I didn't know better, I'd say they were hitting it
off rather well."

        "Would you say the same of us?" Pariah asked.  She expected no
reply.  All she heard was a heavy sigh from Matt as they returned their
attention to Gydon.

        "...and as the transport lifted off from Volna, I saw her bleeding
body on the tarmac get smaller and smaller, one of a hundred red stains on
the surface.  That is why I was startled when you said you had come from
there.  It was where my one and only mate had perished."

        "I feel so terrible for you," Teresa said as she stared into the
flames.  Gydon hugged her to his side.  "It was many years ago," he
responded.  "I have learned to lock the pain."

        He continued.  "Shortly after we left Volna in the stolen transport,
we were attacked by Dinosaucer craft en route to Halden.  I was the only
one able to make it to an escape pod in time.  I watched from the porthole
as the transport silently blossomed into energy, and my tiny pod went
unnoticed until it crashed not far from this abandoned base.  I have
remained here for years, waiting for the opportunity to fight again.  Never
would I have guessed that I would be fighting by the side of a Dinosaucer,
though!"  His roaring laughter was enough to irritate both Pariah and
Matt, but Teresa only snuggled closer to Gydon.

        They soon finished their meal and paired off to two separate
locations to sleep.  Pariah and Matt returned to the shuttle, and offered to
retrieve some blankets for Teresa, but she declined the offer, saying that
Gydon's makeshift quarters were "well supplied."  When they entered the
shuttle, Pariah scanned the surface of Reptilon above them through a view
screen for an hour before retiring with Matt to her quarters.

        "The lakes and rivers now caressing the surface of Reptilon make
it even more beautiful that I recall," she said to Matt.

        "Oh?  No longer 'strange and alien' to you?"

        Pariah humphed.  "No, not any more.  For the first time in a long
time, I feel truly free.  I don't have to pretend to be a Tyranno anymore.  I
don't have to deceive."

        "Well, I'm glad one of us is at ease."  Matt wrapped himself in the
blanket and closed his eyes.

        "What do you mean?"

        "I mean...well...sometimes I think I was more relaxed
scavenging in the desert back on Earth!  There's a large part of me that's
not particularly looking forward to encountering Rex again at the
Dinosorceror's castle."  His eyes opened.  "Everyone seems to think I'm
some sort of heroic focal point, but it's all what other people have done
that has kept me from six feet underground.  You, Ruse, Teresa, and soon
perhaps Gydon...you're the ones who are winning the battles."

        Pariah placed her arm around him.  "You're wrong, Matt.  If you
hadn't believed that I had an implant and risked your life to save me, none
of us would be where we are right now.  You were the one who brought us
the lens.  You -- "

        "I did what I had to do, that's all," he retorted.  "I had no idea I
was carrying the lens with me all that time.  And I had no choice but to
trust that you had a Collar; it was my only chance for freedom.  And
whether it turned out to be you or Rex that smeared me against the wall
during that little escapade wouldn't have mattered much to me."  He
sighed.  "I'm not a hero.  In fact, I'm a coward and I'm damn proud of it!"
he laughed.  "My cowardice is really what kept me alive on Earth for
years.  If you only knew of how many suffering people I turned my back
on that I could've helped, just to save my own neck.  Shit, now that I think
back, it almost feels like I killed those people myself."

        Pariah hugged his back to her chest.  Pariah began to exhale, her
breath resonating through her crest.  Without saying a word, she made
Matt feel warm and contented, as if she was reaching her hands into his
soul and removing the cancerous feelings.  "Damn it, how do you do
that?" he giggled.  "That makes me feel so wonderful."

        "I'm not sure.  I can almost read your thoughts if I concentrate."
Matt was asleep a few seconds later, his mind filled with dreams.
"Goodnight, my little love," she whispered, and entered sleep herself to
find him.

                                *       *       *

        "Morning, sweetheart," Teresa said slyly as she shook Matt's arm.
Upon consciousness, Matt felt suddenly alone.

        "Mmm...how long was I asleep?"

        "Too long.  We're about to leave."  When he opened his eyes, he
saw her back as she left the cabin.  Pariah had apparently woken some
time ago.  "Leave?  Did you say leave?" he spat.

        He quickly threw on the clothes they had found at the base and
jogged towards the cockpit.  Gydon and Pariah were seated in the control
chairs, with Teresa standing behind Gydon's chair.  *Well, I guess I know
where _my_ place is,* Matt thought as he stood behind Pariah.  "Where
are we going?" he asked.

        "Where else, my boy?  To the splendid castle home of the
Dinosorceror!  I always thought I'd be the prisoner of a Dinosaucer if I
ever went there!" Gydon howled and laughed.

        "The...the Dinosorceror's castle?  Now?" Matt stuttered.

        "Do you know of a better time?" Pariah asked.  "But I thought we
decided to let Rex's anger subside a little and make a more subversive
attack when the heat was off!" Matt responded.

        "Rex's anger will never subside, my boy," Gydon answered.  "The
time we waste recuperating is time that Rex can use as well, to organize
his militia.  The sooner we accomplish our goals, the better," Gydon
stated, monitoring the screen before him.

        *_Our_ goals?  Maybe you were right, Pariah,* he thought, but
when he saw Pariah eagerly check the controls and screens before her as
well, he knew she might no longer have her former cautiousness.  *Gydon
is too damn eager.*

        "Relax, Matt.  Remember, even if we can't use the lens
continuously, it's still the most effective threat around.  A broad sweep
could miniaturize quite a large area," Pariah comforted.

        Matt stood silently a moment, his eyes darting.  "That's it!" he
cried.  "Why don't we do that?"

        "What?" Teresa asked.

        "Why don't we simply shrink the entire castle and take it with us?"
Matt explained.  "We just make a quick surgical strike and remove the
castle before anyone even knows what's happened!  We'll be able to
outrun and avoid them with the invisibility screen on, right?"

        "To what ends, human?" Gydon argued.  "We would have to return
it to normal size somewhere to explore it...what does it matter if it's on
Reptilon, Turen, Halden, or Earth?"

        "But that's just it -- why would we?" Matt retorted.  "We could
miniaturize ourselves to explore it right here on the shuttle!  Just fill it
with sleeping gas or something to take care of any Tyrannos on board!
The only problem I foresee is we might wreck the thing while it's so
small."

        "Actually, _that's_ not even a problem," Pariah added as she
powered down the engines she had just ignited.  "Once we miniaturize the
castle, the tractor beam we envelop it in to carry it away can act as an
inertialess stasis field to protect it.  It can be done!"  The cockpit was
filled with excitement momentarily.  "There's just one thing I'd like to
point out, though:  I'm not a complete expert on the operation of the
quantum lens.  I couldn't estimate how long it will take the lens to
recharge after reducing such a massive amount of material.  This in itself
wouldn't be a problem if the stasis field of the tractor beam didn't
deteriorate after about two Earth hours.  I don't think we could keep the
castle safe long enough for us to reduce ourselves to explore it."

        "Hmm," Matt thought.  "Then you'd better let me get inside the
castle first, and then reduce us all at once.  That way we know we'll have
a full two hours to find out what Teryx wants me to see."

        "Reduce _whom,_ Matt?" Teresa asked.  "Perhaps you'd better
make yourself clearer."

        "Well, I would suggest myself and Pariah," he replied.  "She lived
in the castle for years; she knows her way around it.  I can eliminate
searching through the obvious that way."

        "All right then," Pariah stated.  "I'm going to link the quantum lens
to the shuttle's systems that it might work in better conjunction with the
tractor/stasis beam.  I will discuss with Gydon how -- "

        "Wait a minute, wait a minute," Matt exhaled as he rubbed his
scalp.  "I can't believe I'm doing it again."

        "Doing what again?" Teresa asked.

        "Inviting death, that's what!" he spat at her.  "Look, it was only a
few days ago that I was in a dangerous situation with Pariah and Ruse, but
I told myself to keep my mouth shut and hope that things worked out,
because I thought that doing something about it at the time would've been
worse!  I was so goddamn lucky that I didn't die because of that decision."
They all looked into his eyes, failing to understand his point.  "And now,
both Pariah and I are going to be extremely vulnerable while we're inside
that castle, and the only one who I can trust is Teresa.  I'm sorry, Gydon,
I'd like to trust you, but I just can't.  Not yet.  Before we do anything, I
want to make sure that the only sidearm on this entire shuttle is in
Teresa's hand, and it's ready to blast Gydon if he does anything to harm
us."

        "I can't believe you're saying this, Matt!  I thought you trusted
Gydon!" Teresa said with a scowl.  "What has he done to deserve this kind
of treatment?"

        "Nothing, that's what.  Nothing at all.  For all I know, he could just
be using us to get at this shuttle...the lens...a way to get back to his
fellow Sabertooths.  If you don't give me your word you'll keep a gun on
him at all times, I'm not going to go through with this," Matt said sternly.

        "Fine, then don't!  I really don't give a shit about going to the
castle!  This is _your_ little vendetta!  Drop me off whenever you like!"

        "Vendetta?" Matt cried.  "Teryx _died_ for this!  She might be
giving us a chance to free Earth!  Or are you saying that you really _did_
mean all that crap you laid on me when we first met?"

        "Might I interject something at this point?" Gydon stated calmly.

        "What?" Matt shouted at him.

        "In my culture, sharing a meal with someone is one of the closest
bonds one can form with another.  I am quite insulted that you now treat
me as a potential threat."

        *Good,* Matt thought.  *If you're against us, make your move
now.*

        "However," Gydon continued, "in the interests of seeing a
victorious raid against the Tyrannos, I will stay behind and await your
return," he said, trying to give an air of nobility to his words.

        "No, Gydon.  If you're staying, so am I," Teresa added, moving to
the Sabertooths' side.  "Perhaps I should be re-evaluating _my_ trusts as
well."

        After a few moments of staring silently at Teresa, Matt muttered,
"I don't want to make anyone do anything they're not completely
comfortable with."

        Teresa said nothing as she left the cockpit, her cheeks reddening.
"You told me a brave and noble story last night, Matt, but what you do
now...is foolish," Gydon said softly as he followed Teresa out of the
cockpit.

        Pariah stood, but Matt looked into her eyes.  "Let them go, Pariah.
Maybe this _is_ something I have to do alone."

        "And why do you still trust me?" she hissed as she towered over
him.

        "Because you've had many opportunities to betray me, and you
never have."

        "But aren't you denying Gydon these same opportunities?  Will he
ever be able to gain your trust?"

        Matt closed his eyes and held his forehead.  "Look.  This is it.
This is the last risk I intend to take.  I'm going to find out what's so
important about the Dinosorceror's castle, then we're going to get the hell
out of here.  I want to leave this hell behind.  Whatever I learn in that
castle I'm going to just pass on to someone else.  I am _done_ fighting."

                                *       *       *

        Matt sat in the cockpit chair to Pariah's side, and used the control
panel to select an external view monitor.  He saw the figures of Gydon
and Teresa outside the entrance to "Ellis Island," and although the
resolution was poor due to the blowing sands, he was sure he could see the
scowl on Teresa's face.  "You had better be damn careful," he muttered to
himself.

        Gydon, however, looked triumphant as the shuttle's engines
roared.  He then changed the monitor to a schematic of the relative
positions of Reptilon, Halden, and Turen.  "How long will it take to get
there?"

        "Between...five and ten Earth minutes," Pariah replied.

        "Then let's go over the plan once again while we still have time.
Just before you drop me out of the cockpit exit hatch here, you're going to
blast the exterior guards.  I run into the entrance, seal my helmet, and turn
on the switch here to activate the climate control.  I'll see five different
passageways leading from the main hall.  I fire two gas canisters down
each one then stand by the entrance and wait for this chronometer to go
down three notches, and by that time the gas will have spread throughout
the entire castle.  I can drop the gas gun and draw my fossilizer just in
case anyone remains conscious.  Then I'll have until all the notches on
this chronometer are gone to get outside the castle, and by that time you'll
hopefully be able to use the lens again to restore my size . . . otherwise,
I'll just have to wait outside the castle until you can.  But I've got to get
outside it before the chronometer runs down, or else it'll probably
collapse around me when the stasis field wears off.  Is that right, Mom?"
he said with the most serious voice he had ever spoken with.

        "Yes, that's correct," she replied, either accepting or ignoring his
comment.  "When you get inside the castle, I use the tractor/stasis beam
and the 4-D lens simultaneously to shrink the castle and bring it into the
cargo bay.  With the auto pilot set to travel just outside the atmosphere,
randomly evading, and with the invisibility screen activated I can
concentrate on disconnecting the lens and setting it up in the cargo bay for
when you leave the castle."

        "God, I hope this works.  I swear that if we get away with this, I'm
never going to pull any more risky stunts like this again.  But I have to do
this.  I have to see what Teryx said was in the castle.  I've got to do this.
I have to."  Matt continued to reassure his shaking self as Reptilon grew
closer.

        He actually didn't begin to pay attention to the view screens until
they were flying a few thousand feet off the ground.  They were on the
night side of Reptilon, although there was a great deal of reflected light
from its two moons to make the features of the terrain distinguishable.  He
could see other craft flying at various altitudes, casting soft silhouettes on
the land below.  The shuttle came to a vast city, a glittering star field of
multicolored lights that looked much like any city on Earth once did.  As
they flew closer and closer to the building tops, though, he saw that the
structures were crude and rough, almost organic.

        Pariah slowed the craft considerably, and softly spoke.  "Behold,
the last pure structure on Reptilon."

        Even in the dim light, the Dinosorceror's castle sparkled and shone
like white glass.  Matt judged by nearby buildings and craft that it was
about three times as large as a typical Gothic cathedral, but lacked the
high spires.  Instead, it stood low to the ground and appeared to cover a
larger area than it actually did.  There was a vast mall surrounding the
castle, buffering it from the monotonous buildings of the city.

        But there were no signs of troops.  No fleets of fighter craft
circling.  "I guess he must have a whole battalion inside the castle itself,
because I don't see any signs of what I would consider increased activity
around here."

        "You see correctly.  I don't detect any war craft at all here."

        "Well, it's a stupid plan, whatever it is.  No matter how many
guards he has hidden inside, they'll all be sleeping in a few minutes."
Matt felt a rush of confidence calm his shaking hands.  "Let's do it,
Pariah."

        "All right, Matt.  But please, please be careful.  Stay well hidden
while the gas takes effect."  She motioned Matt to stand above a circular
spot in the cockpit floor.  He checked the gas rifle in his arms, the helmet
on his head, and the fossilizer around his waist.  He stood on the spot, and
watched the view screen as the shuttle stopped to hover only a few dozen
meters from the entrance to the castle.

        There were no guards posted outside.

        Pariah simply looked at Matt, closed her eyes, and blindly opened
the hatch.  Matt fell a meter through the opened iris-door to the ground
below, and ran for the entrance.  Nothing.  There was no one on the entire
mall as far as he could see, but he scanned only briefly as he dashed for
the main doors.

        They were large, thick, and heavy, but with fearsome
determination he pulled one open and surveyed the entry hall.  Just as
Pariah had told him, there were five long open corridors.  He double-
checked the seal of his helmet, then closed the air vents and turned on the
oxygen supply.  With a shutunk-hiss, he fired a gas canister down the
leftmost corridor, followed rapidly by another.

        There were no guards anywhere.  The castle was dark and silent.

        Nervously, he fired six more canisters down three more corridors,
turning slowly clockwise.  Still no shouts, still no running guards.
Suddenly, brilliant blue light flooded the chamber from a skylight above
as he fired the first canister down the last corridor.  His aim faltered, and it
struck the wall between the fourth and fifth corridors.  The canister
ricocheted and flew over his left shoulder to strike a figurine in an alcove
on the opposite wall.

        The statue fragmented, and by the time Matt lost his shock and
regained his senses, he saw the canister spinning around amidst the
remains of the statue on the floor behind him.  He shouldered the gas rifle
and turned to pick up the hopping canister.

        The hall was quickly filling with the thick white vapor,
illuminated blue by the light from the skylight, but he managed to grab the
canister and throw it down the last corridor.  He drew the rifle again and
shot the last canister down the same corridor, then dropped the rifle to the
floor.

        *Well, it could've been worse,* he said to himself.  *At least
having a good deal of gas in here allows me to better conceal myself.  But
I should've been prepared for the glow from the stasis field and the lens!*
He ran to the doorway to see if he could view through the blue field to see
if anything was happening outside.  Peeking through the large door,
however, revealed nothing more than a solid blue wall emanating from the
ground about thirty feet from the door.  He looked at the chronometer.
Only one segment of time had passed.

                                *       *       *

        Pariah activated the stasis beam and lens, and the entire castle
began to diminish at a clearly visible rate.  Just a few moments after she
began the process, though, a Tyranno craft appeared on her instruments,
and began to fire upon her.  Apparently, it was simply aiming for the point
at which the tractor beam emanated from.

        Three plasma bolts slammed the port side of the ship, and Pariah
turned her attention to the weapons controls.  In a few seconds, she had
targeted the offending ship and began to return fire.

        The Tyranno attack craft apparently wasn't prepared for
retaliation, and exploded with only a few volleys from Pariah's shuttle.
She was amazed at how easily she handled the craft, as if unseen hands
were giving her strength and guiding her actions.  She basked in the
victory only momentarily, however, as she viewed her short range scanner
and saw dozens of similar craft lifting off from nearby locations.

        Then she returned her attention to the castle.

        The beam which emanated from her ship focused down to an
invisible point.  Immediately, she removed the influence of the lens and
began to move the focal point of the stasis beam closer and beneath the
shuttle.  She used external monitors to maneuver it beneath the open belly
of the craft, then there was a brief flicker as what remained of the castle
was transferred to a stasis beam generated from inside the cargo bay of the
shuttle.  She pulled it inside and instantly closed the bay doors and
activated the auto pilot, then dashed out of the cockpit, grabbing a pair of
goggles on the way out.

        She nearly pried open the last slow-to-open door, and burst into
the cargo bay.  Then she stopped dead in her tracks, hearing nothing but a
soft hum and seeing nothing but the beam and the pedestal.  She slowly
approached the tiny cube, scarcely nine cubic inches, hovering a few
inches above the tabletop.  "Damn it!  This is much smaller than I had
intended to make it!" she cursed aloud as she grabbed a control unit from
her side.  She used it to slowly lower the blue cube to the larger-than-
necessary pedestal until she heard and saw feedback from the stasis beam.
She released the controls, and stood at the edge of the pedestal.

        She placed the control box on the floor beside her, then put on the
goggles she had grabbed.  She first zoomed them in as far as they would
go, but it was only enough to make the cube half as big as her viewing
area--the edge of the table was just too far away from the tiny cube in the
center.  She turned on the stasis filter, and saw the castle behind the field.

        "Oh, no."

                                *       *       *

        When the chronometer ticked another notch, Matt saw the wall of
the field flicker, then the field turned a deeper blue.  *Maybe Pariah just
deactivated the lens,* he thought.  *And maybe I should be watching my
back instead of staring out the door, you moron!* he scolded.

        As soon as he turned his back to view the entry hall, though, the
field blacked out for a split second, then glowed again.  The entire castle
shuddered and moaned, and Matt watched as huge cracks split the floor
before him and climbed the walls.  *Goddamn it, what the hell is going
on?*

        He was about to run outside the door of the castle, when he saw
that cracks split the ground outside as well.  By the time he turned his
attention back to the inside again, though, the moaning had ceased.  He
returned to the entry hall of the slightly splintered castle.

        As he was in midair, jumping across a chasm to enter the leftmost
hall, though, the castle shook again, and the crack widened.  He managed
to grab the edge and pull himself up, as luckily the shuddering was brief
this time.  "I thought the stasis field was supposed to keep this place
stable!" he shouted as he clambered out of the chasm.

        The castle still creaked and moaned occasionally as he wandered
down the first corridor.  He couldn't believe how completely bare the
castle was.  With the exception of a few ornate wall decorations and the
occasional statue, the castle consisted of nothing but rooms devoid of
furniture and featureless arched hallways.  *Perhaps the Tyrannos cleaned
out and searched the castle thoroughly...but Teryx must've known that.
Whatever she wants me to see...must be a feature of the castle itself!*

        The first hallway eventually ended and made a right-angle turn.
The new hallway curved slowly to the right, and Matt figured that this
new passageway was an arc that connected the ends of all five radial
passageways in the castle.  He then decided to follow it until he came to
the intersection of the middle radial passageway, searching rooms and
hopping chasms along the way.

        Nothing.  He found nothing.  No clues in or behind the tapestries,
and no unconscious guards in the rooms.  *Does...does Rex want me to
see what Teryx wanted me to see as well?* he thought, but never lowered
his fossilizer gun.

        By the time the chronometer had reached the halfway mark, he
had reached the middle radial passageway.  Opposite it was the throne
room of the Dinosorceror and Dinosorceress.

        "Whatever Teryx wanted me to see has to be in here, because I
can't imagine the other half of the castle being any different than what
I've already seen," he said aloud and entered the great room.

        The area was poorly lit from the dim blue glow filtering down
through skylights, as were many other areas of the castle, so he again
decided to turn on the pure white light on his helmet to illuminate the
area.  The side-by-side thrones were carved from a purple stone with red
veins flowing through it.  The two inverted L-shaped backs were
symmetrical to each other, and sitting together they formed a split T.  He
approached the thrones, and noticed that hundreds of small holes had been
drilled at irregular intervals on the surface of both thrones.  He examined
the left throne closely to see if he could determine some pattern or reason
to the holes, then saw that one of the holes was larger than the rest, on the
side of the throne which faced the other.

        Looking at the other throne, he saw that it had a similar hole
exactly opposite the first.  *Place a rod between the two?* he thought.  He
then thought that if doing so did open some secret panel, the two larger
holes stood out enough from the rest of the randomly scattered holes for
the Tyrannos to think of the same thing, and whatever was hidden surely
must be gone now.

        But wait -- !  He noticed something that no Tyranno would likely
fathom.  There were _other_ important holes besides the larger one...the
same size as the rest of the scattered pockets!  Four more of them on each
throne, in a rough arc a few inches away from each larger one!

        It was the pattern a human hand grasping into the stone would
make!

        The thrones were just far enough apart to reach both
simultaneously.  He placed the fossilizer on the ground, then extended his
arms.  He had only time to place his thumbs in the larger holes when he
heard a muffled voice from behind him.

        "So that's the secret," it hissed.

        He lowered his arms and swung around, the light beam from his
helmet illuminating the massive bulk of an ankylosauroid, which finally
allowed its massive club-tail to strike the stone behind it and make a
frightening crack that Matt could swear splintered the floor.  His helmet
light glared against the dome of the Tyranno's own transparent portable
atmosphere.  "Don't even try to reach for that fossilizer," it snorted.  "Kick
it over here."

        Matt complied.  For the first moment after he saw the Tyranno, he
was petrified, but then remembered the status of the castle.  A smile
crossed his face as he kicked the fossilizer to the Tyranno's feet.

        "Now turn off that accursed light.  I can see just fine without it."

        Matt slowly reached to his belt and turned the light off.  The
Tyranno kicked the fossilizer out the door, then approached Matt.  It
reached a communicator on its belt.  "Central Command, please respond."
The radio hissed nothing but static.  "Central Command, please respond!"

        "You're not going to reach them, you fool," Matt said
triumphantly.  "This entire castle is surrounded by a stasis field.  And
that's only half your problem."

        "Shut up, human!  Central Command, respond!"  The Tyranno
stood silently for a moment.  "No matter.  All right, human, activate the
switch."

        "With pleasure," Matt gleamed.  He turned his back to the Tyranno
and thrust his fingers into the sockets, and could almost feel the stone give
to his grip.  A stone panel on the side of the left throne recessed, revealing
a small egg-shaped orb.

        "Pick it up and give it to me," the Tyranno demanded.  Ignoring
the command, Matt picked up the egg, noticed it could be opened, and did
so where he stood.  Instantly, some sort of small holographic projection
emerged between the two halves, fading and quivering as Matt
maneuvered and separated the two halves further to bring the three-
dimensional image into focus.

        It was a bright green wire frame representation of three globes,
with a single luminous red point highlighted on the northern pole of the
largest, central globe.  *The northern pole of Reptilon,* he thought to
himself, as did the Tyranno.

        Matt then quickly closed the egg.  "Come on, we have to get out of
here," he stated.

        "You're in no position to give orders, human!"

        "Listen to me.  In a very short time, the stasis field protecting this
castle is going to wear off.  If we aren't outside of it when that happens,
it's going to collapse around us.  Don't you see the huge fissures around
you?  Come on!"  Matt screamed as he placed the reunited egg in his
pocket and ran out the corridor.  The Tyranno ran after him speechless,
incredibly puzzled as to why the human jumped right over his own
fossilizer on the floor.

                                *       *       *

        The Tyranno easily followed the nimble human back to the
entrance hall, jumping the last chasm to reach the doors.  It again looked
puzzled as it saw the huge blue wall just outside the castle, the human
standing next to it.  It again drew its own weapon, and watched patiently
from the door.

        *Why isn't it coming out?* Matt screamed in his head.  *If Pariah
doesn't see him and prepare a suitable arrival...*

        Suddenly, the blue wall disappeared, and strong gusts of wind
buffeted Matt to the ground, beginning to slide him across it.  The castle
heaved and began to crumble from strong vibrations emanating from the
ground.  The Tyranno saw a green beam envelop the human, and it dashed
out from under the collapsing arch to grab him.

                                *       *       *

        Pariah was waiting patiently at the quantum lens console, her
goggles linked through a fiber-optic cable to the panel.  Her vision
focused on the door to the castle, unaware of the intruder nearby.

        Gydon had crept into a nook of the cargo bay undetected by the
concentrating Pariah.  After climbing onto the landing gear of the shuttle
moments before it lifted off to Reptilon, Gydon remained hidden,
intending to remain so until and unless he was needed.  He quickly manned
a rear weapons panel when the lone Tyranno craft attacked the shuttle,
then took his present hidden position in the cargo bay.  *There was no
way in the cosmos that I was going to miss this!* he screamed inwardly as
he saw the stasis field begin to collapse.

        "There he is," Pariah said softly to herself as she watched Matt run
out the door of the castle.  The moment the field collapsed, she activated
the quantum lens.  Then she saw the other figure dash out of the castle and
grab him.

        "No!  NO!" she screamed, and Gydon instinctively drew his
weapon.  They both watched helplessly as Matt and the Tyranno returned
to their normal sizes in seconds.  As he was growing, the Tyranno stood,
saw the shrinking image of Pariah, and aimed his fossilizer at the unarmed
female.

        The lens snapped off, and the Tyranno pushed Matt off of the
pedestal to the floor, panting.  It reached for its radio again, never taking
its aim off of Pariah.  "Central Command, this is Special Unit Thirty-Nine.
I have captured the fugitives at the castle, and retrieved vital information."

        A voice on the speaker eagerly replied.  "This is Central, Thirty-
Nine, we are receiving you."  Pariah slowly removed her goggles and
sneered at the Tyranno.  Gydon remained silent and motionless, his own
aim tracking the ankylosauroid.  Matt slowly stood beside the pedestal the
Tyranno stood upon and removed his helmet.  "Please clarify your current
status, Thirty-Nine," the voice on the communicator insisted.

        "Prepare for visual transmission," the Tyranno replied.  "Human.
Open the egg now, or your friend is dead."

        Matt pounded his thigh with a clenched fist in anger and defeat,
then withdrew the egg.  Never taking his eyes or aim off of Pariah, it slid a
panel on the communicator down, revealing a small lens, and pointed it
towards Matt.  "Open it!" it demanded again.

        Matt slowly separated the egg and reluctantly brought the
hologram into focus.  Both Pariah and Gydon were distracted by the
mysterious meaning of the map.

        "Central, are you receiving this?" the Tyranno shouted.
"Affirmative, we're recording," was the reply.  "Thirty-Nine, how many
prisoners do you have?"

        "One human and one Dinosaucer, Central," the Tyranno proudly
stated, not noticing the white glow that the red point at the northern pole
of the Reptilon hologram had taken.  Matt stared at the point intently.

        "Excellent, Thirty-Nine.  Including the human female, that means
we have all of them now.  Be aware that there may be a Sabertooth still
loose in your vicinity, however, and -- "

        The remainder of the report was overshadowed by a howl from the
corner of the bay.  "Teresa!" Gydon shouted and stepped into the light.
The Tyranno looked over at the enraged Sabertooth, as did Pariah.  Matt
was still transfixed by the ever-brightening glow from the hologram.

        "Lower your weapon, furball, or your companions are dead!" the
Tyranno demanded.  Gydon was so enraged he nearly crushed the weapon
in his hands.  "Teresa!" he shouted again.  "If you have harmed her...!"

        "I SAID DROP IT!" the Tyranno again demanded.  Gydon threw
the gun to the floor, and it bounced to a corner out of everyone's reach.  "I
will gut you if anything happens to her!"  Gydon could almost feel blood
vessels explode inside of him.

        They all stood silent for a moment, Pariah looking at Gydon,
Gydon staring at the Tyranno, and the Tyranno keeping both of them in
view, when Matt spoke.

        "No."

        Pariah was the first to divert her attention to Matt.  She was also
the first besides Matt to notice the bright white glow emanating from the
hologram before him.

        "No."

        "Be silent, human," the Tyranno demanded.  "And as for the rest of
you, get over -- "

        "No, don't," Matt said again.  "Don't."  The light from the
hologram grew brighter still.

        Gydon was the next to divert his hatred and pay attention to Matt.
"Don't," Matt stuttered again.

        The light from the hologram suddenly began to get as bright and as
hot as the sun.  "No, don't!" Matt screamed at the top of his lungs.  "Don't
look at it!" he shouted.

        Pariah and Gydon closed their eyes, but the Tyranno at last turned
its attention to the hologram.

        It exploded into burning energy, piercing the eyes of Matt and the
Tyranno.  Matt shrieked but kept his eyes wide open; the Tyranno
dropped both the weapon and the communicator as it tried to cover its
eyes.  The light flashed erratically like a strobe as Matt's brain was
flooded with information from the hologram, and when the light suddenly
disappeared only a few seconds later, his hands pulverized the two halves
of the egg and he collapsed on his back, his mouth and his eyes still open.

        Gydon opened his eyes after detecting the light had gone, and
instantly dove for the stumbling Tyranno, pummeling it off the table and
inserting his claws into its chest.  "I feast for my mate and for Teresa!" he
howled and began to rip the screaming Tyranno to shreds.

        Pariah opened her eyes as well, and ran towards the drooling,
shaking form of Matt.  The color of his irises had disappeared; they had been
turned completely white.  She checked and found that he still had a pulse
and was still breathing, but he didn't respond to her in any way.

        "Unit Thirty-Nine, Unit Thirty-Nine, are you there?" the
communicator beside Pariah crackled.  She ignored it, and tried to get
through to Matt.  She picked him up and cradled him in her muscular
arms, ignoring both the sound of Gydon's retribution and the radio until
she heard a different voice transmit.

        "Pariah, this is your Master.  Unless you want to see the human
Teresa disemboweled, you will surrender the lens and yourselves to me
immediately."








Absolute Zero, Chapter Seven:  Blue Savannah


        The radio crackled with static for a few seconds before Rex
transmitted again.  "Do you hear me, Pariah?  The human female Teresa is in my
custody now.  If you do not follow my instructions, she will perish."

        Pariah closed her eyes and began to sob over the prone body of Matt,
when she felt his hands on her snout.  She looked down, and saw that he was
blinking his eyes and moving his mouth.  "Matt!  Are you alright?" she sobbed.

        "You must stall Rex," he said groggily.  "I'll be okay."

        She laid him carefully on the floor of the cargo bay, stopped
momentarily to see Gydon rip out the lower intestine of the Tyranno guard,
then picked up the radio.  "I am here, Rex.  What are your demands?"

        "They are quite simple," he replied.  "You are to surrender yourselves
and the quantum lens to me unconditionally.  In return, I promise you will all
live out your natural lives in a penal colony on Earth."

        Matt turned to his side slowly and spoke weakly to Pariah.  "He's
going to the pole now, Pariah.  He know's what's there.  You've got to get
there first."

        "But what about Teresa?" Pariah asked.

        "She is with him now," Matt coughed.  "Go...go to the pole...now..."
he wheezed as he fell unconscious again.  Pariah then noticed that blood was
seeping from the seam of his artificial foot, and surmised he must have given
it more exertion in the castle than it was designed for.

        The castle.  She turned to face the table, and saw that it had been
reduced to a pile of white dust during the scuffle.

        Ignoring the additional commands Rex was shouting over the radio, she
retrieved a piece of cloth from a storage bin and tied it around Matt's
bleeding leg.  He reached a trembling arm towards hers.  "There is no
time...we will all die if you don't get to the pole now.  Please, Pariah.  No
matter what happens, you must go...now..." he whispered.

        She looked into his pale eyes, and instinctively her crest began to
hum and vibrate.  Her own mind flooded with a paralyzing fear and sense of
urgency.  The emotions she was receiving from Matt were too much for her to
bear.  She quickly finished the tourniquet, picked Matt up, and gently laid
him on the table.  As she waited for the cargo bay door to completely open,
she saw that Gydon had finished with his feast and was preening himself.
"Watch over Matt," she said to him, and ran towards the cockpit without
waiting for confirmation of her command.

        As she sat down in the control chair, she noticed that the short range
scanner was now absent of Tyranno craft, and that the auto-pilot had placed
them over one of the newly-created oceans on Reptilon -- approximately four
Earth minutes flight from the north pole.  She did not hesitate to set a
direct course there as Matt instructed her.  *But what exactly is at the pole?
Why did the Dinosorceress not confide in me with the secret?*

        She remained tense for the next two minutes of uninterrupted flight,
and watched the landscape below her quickly change from the undulating waves
of the sea, to a matted green forest, to the desert tundra she was most
familiar with.  The shuttle flew as close to the surface as Pariah dared to go.

        Suddenly, three icons appeared on her rear radar display.  She quickly
tapped them for identification, and discovered they were long-range missiles.
Heat-seeking missiles.  Missiles that the shuttle was not equipped to evade.

        Even if she stopped the shuttle immediately and landed, the remaining
heat from the engine exhaust would lure the missiles to them.  There were no
nearby bodies of water to dive beneath, and there were no other ships airborne
in the vicinity.

        The missiles were only seconds away from impacting the shuttle.  Even
aborting their current flight plan and heading for deep space, the missiles
would continue to track them.  There was absolutely nothing she could do.

        Nothing but to run back to the cargo bay and be with Matt when they
died.

        As she opened the door to the rear hold, she saw that Gydon was
propping Matt up near the controls to the quantum lens.  "No!" she shouted.
"You don't know what you're doing!"

        "I know exactly what I'm doing," the weary Matt replied.  He handled
and selected the controls on the lens as if doing so was second nature to him.
Before Pariah could reach him, Matt activated the lens, and a wide beam cut
through the rear of the ship.  Air rushed out of the bay as the rear paneling
of the shuttle disappeared.  They saw the missiles just a few hundred feet
behind them before they, too, disappeared.

        But there was a red glow from where the wide beam from the lens
intersected the main engine's reactor.  The energy field the reactor produced
warped the effects of the quantum lens.

        "Push it into the reactor," Matt said softly to Gydon, who placed Matt
to the floor beside him and did as he instructed.  Gydon only had to push the
lens slightly before its own beam began to draw it towards the reactor.  "Now
run," Matt moaned as loudly as he could.

        Pariah picked Matt up by the shoulders and ran with Gydon back towards
the cockpit.  As they reached the forward cabins, they heard and felt an
explosion as the lens came in contact with the engine, resulting in mutual
destruction.

        "It was the only option," Matt explained as Pariah placed Matt in one
of the control chairs, then sat down in the other.  "We'll have to stay
airborne using the maneuvering jets."

        "But how did you know how to operate the lens?" Pariah asked as she
struggled with the sparking controls.

        "The hologram contained a memory capsule.  I know just about
everything the Dinosorceror did.  But it's not going to last.  Already I can
feel the information slipping away.  I've got to tell you what I know before
it's gone forever," Matt slowly struggled to enunciate.

        "We're not going to make it with the maneuvering thrusters, Matt,"
Pariah spat, ignoring what he had said.  "You've got to get out now using the
tractor beam before the shuttle crashes.  I can only keep it airborne for a
few moments longer, and we're travelling too fast to make a safe landing.
Gydon, take Matt and go back to the cargo bay.  I'll put you down safely."

        "No...we must...stay...together," Matt moaned as he tried to remain
conscious.  "Matt is right, Pariah.  If we are to die, we will be as one,"
Gydon added in protest.

        Pariah didn't give them a second glance as she diverted her attention
from keeping the shuttle airborne to other controls.  The three doors
separating the cockpit from the remains of the cargo bay slid open, and the
tractor beam pulsed straight through, enveloping the unconscious Matt and the
struggling Gydon.  "Tell Matt I will always love him," she said as she
returned her attention to the controls before her.

        Without delay, the tractor beam shot them from out of the rear of the
shuttle, tossing them gently to the sands below.  As Matt sprawled into the
dune, Gydon watched as the beam dissipated, and the shuttle smoked and
sputtered over the horizon, leaving a faint trail of ash.

                                *       *       *

        When Matt awoke, it was still night.  He found himself on Gydon's
back, who was walking briskly through the desert sand.  Gydon heard him moan.
"Are you awake, Matt?" he huffed.

        "Yes.  Where are we?"

        "We still haven't caught up to the shuttle yet.  We've been travelling
for quite some time, and I was about to rest."  He slowed to stop at the top
of the next dune, then slid Matt from his back.  "How are you feeling?" Gydon
asked.

        "Much better.  My leg is still sore from the workout I gave it,
though," he replied, rubbing the dried bloody cloth.  "But much of the memory
implant is gone now.  I have to tell you what I know before it's all gone," he
grabbed Gydon's legging urgently.  "I have to tell it to myself so my own mind
will remember."

        "Well, now is the perfect time," Gydon replied.  He took one of the
many electronic devices attached to his body suit and placed it on the ground.
He switched it on, but nothing happened.

        "This...this is supposed to provide light and heat, but for some
reason it is not working," Gydon explained as he tapped the device.

        "That's a good sign," Matt replied.  "That means we're in the
dampening field near the pole."

        "Dampening field?" Gydon asked as he placed the device back on his
person.

        "There's a null particle field surrounding the base at the pole which
disrupts all electronics."

        "Ahh...of course!" Gydon cried.  "That's what happens to all the craft
that fly too close to the pole!  The north pole of Reptilon is a forbidden
place to travel, because many ships that cross its location disappear without
a trace!"

        "It's to protect the base until..." Matt began.

        "Until?"

        "Well, perhaps I'd better start at the beginning...or at least, at my
beginning.  You've got to promise to remember all of this, okay?" Matt again
pleaded with urgency in his voice.

        "I will remember it verbatim," Gydon replied.

        "Good," he sighed with relief.  "Then here it all is.  The
coincidences between our two worlds...how all Reptilonians, including your own
race, resemble life forms that existed on Earth, are not coincidences at all.
We created you."

        "Created us?" Gydon howled in disbelief.

        "Yes.  And the Dinosorceror and Dinosorceress were human."

        "Human?"

        "Please, let me explain without interruption!" Matt said, irritated,
and Gydon complied.  "In the year 2370 on my world, humanity had lived
through dozens of futile wars.  Billions upon billions of people were born
only to be murdered in a senseless, ongoing slaughter.  Instead of exploring
the reaches of space and time, humanity concentrated on destroying any group
or faction that was different from another.  The world became an unescapable
wasteland by the twenty-fifth century.  After the last great war in 2368, only
a few thousand humans remained.  One man, by the name of Jrathan, gathered
together the survivors and founded a new philosophy..."

        "But that is the name of the planet we now stand upon!" Gydon spat,
unable to contain himself.

        "I thought you weren't going to interrupt!  Now, this Jrathan believed
that humanity would always be self-destructive and violent towards all who
were different because it was in our very nature.  We were the embodiment of
evolution...of natural selection...and that we were only fulfilling our role
as purifiers.  Jrathan believed that the process of evolution was inherently
evil.

        The other survivors believed what Jrathan told them, and they all
worked collectively on what would be humanity's final effort:  to create a
life form that would be free of the evils of evolution.  In the year 2372, the
first prototype creature was created, and they named it a Jrathan after their
leader.  _That's_ why this planet is called Jratha in Reptilonian, because
Jrathan's creations gave this planet a name unto themselves.

        The followers of Jrathan chose to give this life form the physical
appearance of the most successfully evolved creature to ever live on the
Earth:  a dinosaur.  The external appearance was the only similarity, however.
The first, as well as all subsequent Jrathans, did not employ mutatable DNA in
their cellular structure.  The life form would reproduce through the illusion
of sexual melding, but the result would always be a carbon-copy, in all senses
of the word.

        The reason the first Jrathans were made to look and act like products
of evolution, their creators planned, was so that they could spread throughout
the universe, infiltrating other non-perfect evolutionary beings and destroy
them after gaining their confidence.  Jrathan wanted to destroy evolution on a
universal scale."

        "What you are telling me is monstrous," Gydon had to interrupt again.

        "It gets much, much worse," Matt replied.  "Jrathan and his followers
developed the technology to extend their own lifespans indefinitely so that
they could finish their task, which came as a natural result of creating a
life form that was perfection.  They denied the Jrathans immortality as
another safeguard against any one Jrathan somehow developing abnormally.  They
extended their own lifetimes because once they had completed the first
prototype, they wanted to insure that it would behave perfectly as planned.
They also wanted to ensure that the influences of evolution would be minimized
in the development.

        In the year 2473, the three humans who were the most intelligent
assumed the forms of their creations and left for space to find a barren
planet suitable for use as their laboratory.  The humans were named D'dromon,
Pylar, and Xertra.  The remaining thousands of people, including Jrathan
himself, killed themselves in an explosion of planetary magnitude that
eliminated the Earth.  The three scientists and their creations located a star
system a few thousand light years away, the one I knew as Pollux, which
contained a barren planet that they could use, the one we're on now.

        During the time it took their sub-light ship to reach this world, they
continued to develop technology that they could bestow upon their
creations...among these technologies was spacetime travel.  They discovered
that spacetime was like a wave in a body of water, or a sound travelling
through the air.  Their future didn't exist yet, but their past was still
there.  They discovered that they could remove themselves from spacetime
using an absolute zero field, and start a new ripple in the past...a new
reality, a new existence that would overwrite what had been there before.
They also discovered that they could make this ripple travel faster than the
ripple they were currently riding as well...they could erase their own
existence.  And that's just what they planned to do.

        When they reached this world, they quickly terraformed it and its
moons into a life-sustaining biosphere.  D'dromon set up a base at the pole to
prepare the timepulse, while Pylar and Xertra propagated and monitored the
progress and development of their creations."

        "So, Pylar..."

        "Pylar was the Dinosorceror, and Xertra was the Dinosorceress.  They
assumed their godlike status among the Jrathans and watched them develop the
Reptilonian culture.  They diversified their creations, made many different
variations to their prototypes, and watched how they interacted.  For the
first thousand years, they would send the most promising prototype every few
years to D'dromon's polar base to be placed in the craft that would be sent
back in time, just in case something went awry and they had to conclude
their project prematurely.

        The absolute zero field D'dromon was generating at the pole was like a
slingshot...the longer it kept increasing in power, the further back in time
the timepulse would originate, and the faster it would travel to overtake the
current timepulse.

        Everything was going well, until Pylar and Xertra began to see traits
in their creations that were evolutionary.  The different species of Jrathans
they created began to fight amongst themselves, contrary to the mental
programming they had been given not to.  Pylar and Xertra began to think that
perhaps there was no way for them to successfully create a non-evolutionary
creature from an evolutionary creator.  Perhaps creating a perfect creature
in an imperfect world would always result in the corruption of their creation.
They began to doubt Jrathan's teachings.

        So they stopped sending prototypes to D'dromon's polar base.  They
knew that D'dromon's instructions were to simply wait until they arrived with
the final prototype to activate the timepulse and rewrite history.  But Pylar
and Xertra began to feel guilt as to what they had done to Earth and humanity,
and decided to never send the final prototype.  They knew that the timepulse
could not be aborted without destroying the entire planet, so they chose to
keep their secret forever.

        A thousand centuries passed without incident, as Pylar and Xertra
became content in their roles as leaders of Jratha.  In their increasing
guilt, they even allowed the Jrathans to develop timepulse technology,
allowing them to visit the Earth in the not-so-distant past.  They opened a
portal to the year 1983, and started a pulse that traveled the same speed as
their current timewave; thus both realities could co-exist indefinitely.  They
were developing the notion that they should reveal themselves to this
primitive Earth in the hope that they would become guardians of the Earth as
well, preventing the futile wars which would otherwise surely follow--even
preventing the Jrathan project in this new reality.

        But a cancer developed among the Jrathans known as Ytrera, whom I know
in my own tongue as Genghis Rex.  As you know already, he was responsible for
the death of Pylar and Xertra.  But what you don't know is that Pylar tried in
vain to explain his true nature to Ytrera.  Evidently, Pylar never told Rex
where D'dromon was located before he was executed...otherwise, none of us
would probably be here.  So the Dinosorceress hid the memory capsule in their
throne room in the hopes that someday a human from Earth would find it."

        "So now that Rex knows where D'dromon is..."

        "I don't know what will happen.  But if that timepulse starts, we'll
all be gone in just a few minutes.  It's getting harder to think straight
about it, but if I remember correctly, if the timepulse were to be started
now, it would reach back approximately seventy million Earth years, and travel
about 34 trillion times as fast as the timewave we're on now."

        Matt and Gydon sat in the cool stillness of the polar desert night,
and Matt allowed sleep to overtake him.  Gydon, however, was so disturbed by
the news that when a brisk wind began to stir the desert sands a few hours
later, he woke Matt and continued the journey to the pole, following the faint
trail of ash from the shuttle.

        Again, hours passed in silence, until they spotted the wreckage of the
shuttle.  "Good Lord, I had almost forgotten Pariah, I have been struggling so
hard to remember the memory implant," Matt said as he slid from Gydon's back
and ran alongside him towards the remains of the cockpit.

        At first, they could find no trace of Pariah, until Matt noticed the
few remaining footprints leading away from the cockpit that the wind hadn't
eroded.  "She's alive and heading for the pole, just as I told her to," Matt
remarked.  "If she got there before Rex, D'dromon might understand.  He might
not abort or start the timepulse, because there will still be a chance to save
the Jrathan project.  She will warn him that Rex is coming.  There might still
be a chance."

        They scavenged for food and water briefly in the wreckage before
continuing their journey.  With the infusion of energy, Gydon ran so fast
across the desert that Matt found it difficult to keep a grip around his neck.
They ran for another hour, until they saw something half-buried in the sands
before them in the dim moonlight.  Gydon stopped running when he reached it.

        It was a metal pipe sticking out of the sands.  As they approached it,
it began to recede, allowing sand to flow inside of it.

        Suddenly, the ground beneath them began to shake.  Sand began to sink
down into a vortex a few hundred yards in front of them as the ground opened
slowly.  They couldn't see what had been exposed, but they could only assume
it was D'dromon's installation.

        Without warning, an explosion plumed from the center of the base, and
a thundering boom shifted the sands around them.  A huge yellow column of
luminous gas spewed from the ground and high into the night sky.  Matt felt
his skin tingle with static, and moisture condensed around them.  The brief
downpouring only lasted a few moments, then all was quiet.

        "The absolute zero field timepulse was activated.  We're too late,"
Matt said softly.  He saw that electronics on Gydon's person were
re-activating.  "The dampening field is gone," he added.

        Gydon grabbed the stunned Matt by the waist and carried him.  "Come
on...we've got to see if anyone is still alive!" he shouted as he ran towards
the base.

        Gydon stopped as he reached the perimeter of the opening, and put Matt
down.  The luminous plume had dissipated, and in the dim light they could see
little detail, but they heard a soft metallic chime.

        The brisk polar wind was catching an object hanging from a fragmented
beam.

        It was Pariah's armor.








Absolute Zero, Chapter Eight:  Drama!


        Matt knelt at the edge of the base, reached down and grabbed the
shattered plate that once protected Pariah.  "They're all dead," he moaned.

        "No!" Gydon shouted as he grabbed Matt and jumped down to the unseen
floor.  They landed roughly, and Gydon tossed Matt aside and ran off into the
darkness.  Matt could do nothing but lie and wait for the end.

        Matt saw Gydon activate his light device, and the base was suddenly
illuminated.  In the center of the floor was a disc approximately ten meters
wide -- the absolute zero portal.  It was silent, dark, and grey like the rest
of the installation.

        He stood and ran to Gydon's position, but then saw movement out of the
corner of his eye.  It was a large, withered saurian who appeared to be
unarmed.  "The project is complete," it spoke.  "The resolution has been
reached."

        Gydon was about to charge the creature, when he saw that Matt was
walking towards him.  "You were wrong, D'dromon," he said.  "The project is
corrupt.  The resolution is invalid.  You're killing us all for nothing!"

        D'dromon's eyes quivered.  "A human?  How did you come to be here?
Who are you?"

        "Where is Pariah?" Matt stated bluntly.

        Upon hearing the name, D'dromon suddenly became understanding of
the situation.  He paused momentarily, then replied.  "The apotheosis has been
delivered."

        "But she wasn't the one!  Why did you send her?" Matt screamed.  "The
Jrathan project was _abandoned,_ you fool!  She wasn't the one!  Pylar and
Xertra are _dead!_"

        "She was encoded as the final product.  A false mate was synthesized
and sent.  Immortality was established.  The project has been successfully
completed."

        *Pariah?  _Was_ Pariah the end result of the project?  That's...that's
why Xertra hid the secret from her, and told Teryx instead!* Matt thought.

        "Gydon, hold him," Matt ordered, and ran towards a control panel.
"God, I hope I can still remember..."  Gydon grabbed D'dromon, who complied
without resistance.  "What do you hope to accomplish, human?" D'dromon asked.

        Matt activated the control panel.  He saw by the readings that the
timepulse was indeed traveling at an incredible rate, and that it would
overtake their current position in less than one minute's time.  "I'm going to
ride your timewave, you son of a bitch."  He pressed a few more controls, and
the absolute zero field was activated at minimum power.

        "How do you know how to operate those controls?" D'dromon asked, his
voice sounding calm instead of worried.  "And what have you done?"

        "The location is set for a place on Earth, and the controls have been
set to activate the field precisely when the timepulse reaches us."

        "That will do you no good, human," D'dromon eased.  "The Jrathans will
eliminate you as they would any other evolutionary vermin."

        "Then I guess I'll see you in hell," Matt said as he walked towards
the disc.  A blast from a plasma gun interrupted his path.

        They all looked up to see Genghis Rex standing at the edge of the
installation.  He was holding a limp Teresa in one arm, and a rifle in the
other.  He adjusted a few settings on his weapon, then took aim again.  "You
won't be going anywhere, human.  The prophecy of the Ancients _shall_ be
fulfilled."  He tossed Teresa to the floor of the installation in a pile of
debris, and Gydon released D'dromon with a scream and ran to her.  Rex fired a
shot at the control panel, and it exploded, tossing D'dromon across the
installation and causing the field before Matt to flicker.

        Gydon had just begun to examine the prone body of Teresa when a shot
from the darkness beyond the rim of the base hit Rex in the back...a shot from
a fossilizer gun.  His petrified body slowly tilted forward and plunged to the
floor beside Gydon, shattering into dust.  "She is alive!" Matt heard Gydon
scream as Matt saw Rex's attacker step softly into the light.

        It was Teryx.  "Yes, she _is_," Matt said as Teryx dropped the
fossilizer and glided down to the installation floor to examine Teresa.  After
a few moments of prodding, Teryx said, "Her leg is broken, but otherwise she
appears unhurt."

        Matt ran to the sparking control panel while Gydon cradled Teresa in
his arms.  "I can't tell how badly the controls have been damaged," Matt
shouted, "but the field is still intact.  We may still have a chance."  He
turned to see Gydon placing Teresa on the absolute zero field platform.  "Take
care of her, Matt," Gydon said as he stepped back from the dais.

        "What?  Aren't you coming?"

        "Our time is over, Matt," Teryx answered him.  "Our world is at an
end.  We do not belong in the new world."

        "What are you saying?" Matt screamed, frustrated.

        Gydon ran to Matt and placed his struggling body on the platform.
"You have revealed to me that I no longer have a purpose for existence, Matt,"
Gydon spoke.  "I am ready to die."

        Once Matt was on the field, he saw D'dromon walk to another
control panel and activate some sort of force wall around the dais.  "What are
you doing?" Matt screamed from inside the capsule.

        D'dromon didn't answer him; he simply stood silently by the sparking
controls.  Gydon stood back from the platform and did the same.  Matt glanced
at the moaning Teresa beside him momentarily, then turned his gaze to Teryx.

        "If it eases your mind, Matt, none of us have any choice in the
matter," she said.

        The field turned red beneath them.  "What do -- "





______________________________________________________________________________



        "Thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

     They that see shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying,
Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

     That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof;
that opened not the house of his prisoners?"

                                                Isaiah 14:15-17

______________________________________________________________________________




                                E       N       D



______________________________________________________________________________









The following is a discography (with lyrics) of the music from which
the chapter titles of my story, Absolute Zero, are derived.  Some are
derived more from the music than the words, but each song holds a clue
to the ultimate outcome of the story.  My notes and thoughts on each song
and its influence precede each song.

-----------------------
Chapter 1:  Supernature
-----------------------
Erasure:  "Blue Savannah" single (William Orbit's Mix)

Other mixes of the song can be found elsewhere, some with additional
lyrics, but this is the one that inspired the first chapter in particular.
The music describes the conquest of humanity in its various stages.
The opening techo-noise represents Rex using the 4-D lens on his warriors.
When it returns, he is using his weather controlling satellites to change
the climate of the Earth to that of a worldwide desert.

Once upon a time
Science opened up the door
We would feed the hungry fields
'Till they couldn't eat no more
But the potions that we made
Touched the creatures down below
And they grew up in a way
That we'd never seen before

They were angry with the men
'Cause he changed their way of life
And they take that sweet revenge
As they trample through the night
For a hundred miles or more
You could hear the people cry
But there's nothing you can do
Even God is on their side

Maybe nature has a plan
Will there be a happy end?

------------------------
Chapter 2:  Faith Healer
------------------------
Recoil:  "Bloodline" album

The music begins as Matt wakes, and depicts the tension present in his
mind.  I feel that the lyrics in this song (some of which must be wrong,
as I have no written source to quote from) are the weakest inspiration in
all of the Absolute Zero chapters, to be frank, but the music was perfect.
Clues can be found buried in the nonsense, though...

Everybody's feeling bad
And it's the only one you have
You wanna take away the pain?
Go out walking in the rain
Watch the flowers go to bed
Ask the man inside your head
His spirit never have to breathe
All you got to do's believe
The faith healer

All you got to do is feel
Your poppa's gonna stop it here
Fingertips and holy fire
Everlasting sweet desire
It don't matter what the doctors say
Heal a man and sail away
Immortality for two
Miracles can come to you
The faith healer

Can I put my hands on you?

Faith and hope and charity
Simple (not understood)
He can make you understand
Calm enough to take his hand?
Remember when somebody said
Ask the man inside your head
Fingertips and holy fire
Everlasting sweet desire
The faith healer

Can I put my hands on you?

---------------------------
Chapter 3:  Hyperreal Orbit
---------------------------
The Shamen:  "En-Tact" album

The sparse lyrics and the music to this song describe the encounter
between Matt and Pariah, giving a dual meaning to "hyperreal" as the story
interprets it from the full title of the song.  "Orbit" is actually the
name of the artist who mixed the song, though...the same who mixed
the song "Supernature" in chapter one.

Hyperreal feeling flowing
Don't give up, you gotta keep going
Moving up right to the very top tip
And when you get there
You won't wanna quit climbing
Ascending, rising
Harmonizing, fantasizing
Healing, feeling hyperreal
Only way to go
Let's do it

------------------------
Chapter 4a:  Hammerheads
------------------------
Shriekback:  "Oil And Gold" album

The music is similar to that played at the ceremony Matt witnesses,
and the lyrics describe the motto and mindset of the Tyrannos.  This song
coincides with inspiration derived from the next song for chapter four,
"Ruiner."  Key phrases in this song include "This is our mission, to be
the Daleks of God" and the "Blessed are" series at the end.

Our time has come, age of the hammerheads
This is our mission, to be the Daleks of God
Too late for silence, too late for anything
It's all too much for me, it's roots go down to deep for me

A punishing fire, an animal frenzy
These hammerhead people know what danger is for
You let them in, and now they're everywhere
If its mineral or vegetable, it's back a little up a little

Shout!  Push!  Hammerheads!
Bold and resolute
Marching, balancing, in too far to go back
Yes!  Yes!  Hammerheads!
Swimming, kissing, we are big and clever and we don't know anything

Purification by immersion in our filthy demon seed
You know the only things we like are paranoid sex and childish greed
Our own worst enemies, they hollowed us out of wood
Look at all the grease inside us, gonna get us this time but good
Whether we pull it out or push it in, it all ends up the same you know
A hammerhead is a hammerhead by any other name

Shout!  Push!  Hammerheads!
Bold and resolute
Marching, balancing, in too far to go back
Yes!  Yes!  Hammerheads!
Swimming, kissing, we are big and clever and we don't know anything
Onward, Hammerheads!
Bright and dangerous
Jumping, running in the field and factory
God save Hammerheads!
Keeping going
We are sleek and special and we're sure of something

Blessed are the ape men
Blessed are the shit kickers
Blessed are the jack hammers
Blessed is the big damage
Blessed are the faith healers
Blessed are the moon walkers
Blessed are the snake people
Blessed are the heat seekers

-------------------
Chapter 4b:  Ruiner
-------------------
Nine Inch Nails:  "The Downward Spiral" album

This song describes none other than Genghis Rex and Matt's confrontation
and feelings towards him.  The line which stands out in my mind the most is
"Now the only pure thing left in my fucking world is wearing your disease,"
referring to Pariah's Tyranno insignia (or perhaps the Collar he believed she
had).  During the first chorus I visualize Rex addressing the crowd gathered
below him.  During the second I see him devouring Ruse, then as the music
quietens, the dais closes again and Rex explains what Matt has done for him.
The first thump of the heavy music returning is when Pariah crushes Matt's leg,
and says to Pariah, "You didn't hurt me."  His resolve is greater than ever.

You had all of them on your side, didn't you?
You believed in all your lies, didn't you?
The ruiner's got a lot to prove,
     he's got nothing to lose and now he made you believe
The ruiner's your only friend,
     well he's the living end to the cattle he deceives
The raping of the innocent, you know the ruiner ruins everything he sees
Now the only pure thing left in my fucking world is wearing your disease

How did you get so big?
How did you get so strong?
How did you get so hard?
How did it get so long?

You had to give them all a sign, didn't you?
You had to covet what was mine, didn't you?
The ruiner's a collector,
     he's an infector serving his shit to his flies
Maybe there will come a day
     when those that you keep blind will suddenly realize
Maybe it's a part of me, you took it to a place I hoped it would never go
And maybe that fucked me up much more than you'll ever know

How did you get so big?
How did you get so strong?
How did you get so hard?
How did it get so long?
What you gave to me
My perfect ring of scars
You know I can see
What you really are

You didn't hurt me, nothing can hurt me
You didn't hurt me, nothing can stop me now

-----------------
Chapter 5:  Slave
-----------------
Revenge:  "One True Passion" album

The words are what Teryx was thinking about Rex as she finally overcame his
dominance of her.  Although sung by a male vocalist, it describes how she
had been corrupted by Rex.  The line which stands out most in my mind is
"If I could find some hope tomorrow, then I'd hear you scream in sorrow."
Also note how I worked the name of the performing band into the chapter
as well.  :]

Tell me of all the things I've never seen
I live for strange days, and all those echoes inbetween
It almost makes me sad to be here
Life isn't what it seems
I think of all the precious time I'm wasting
While you live your life in dreams

Tell them how much hate there is in me (and I can see you crying)
I'm in a blind rage for all the feelings that I need (and I can see you lie)
If I could find some hope tomorrow
Then I'd hear your scream in sorrow
I can't believe a word you'll say
When truth means more than greed

Nothing ever lasts forever
And it's the same for you I'm sure
Of all the things we did together
They just hurt me more and more

-------------------------------
Chapter 6:  Weight Of The World
-------------------------------
Erasure:  "The Innocents" album

This song describes Pariah's feelings towards Matt as she discovers the
innate ability she possesses to probe his mind.  The resolve Matt developed
in "Ruiner" has now eroded, and as his world closes his only contact is
through Pariah.

Hey little wise man
You got the sweetest notion
Ooh the sweetest thing
Just once in a lifetime
You need a helping hand
Ooh a caring hand

You keep it wrapped up inside
It's like a lethal potion
Gonna find it soul destroying

Woah, don't take it any further now baby
Woah, won't lead you anywhere
Woah, it's pushing and a hurting you baby
Woah, I'll say a little prayer

No other wise man
Could take the hurt like you do
Ooh the pain like you
Putting on a brave face
But it gets to you somehow
Ooh gets through somehow

You hold your head in your hands
And the weight of the world on your shoulders
Come and pour your heart out to me

Woah, don't take it any further now baby
Woah, won't lead you anywhere
Woah, it's pushing and a hurting you baby
Woah, I'll say a little prayer

You keep it wrapped up inside
It's like a lethal potion
Gonna find it soul destroying

Woah, don't take it any further now baby
Woah, won't lead you anywhere
Woah, it's pushing and a hurting you baby
Woah, I'll say a little prayer

-------------------------
Chapter 7:  Blue Savannah
-------------------------
Erasure:  "Wild!" album

Matt and Gydon separate from Pariah in the race to the pole of Reptilon.
The thunder at the end of the song represents the explosions they observe
as they approach the installation.

Blue savannah song
Oh a blue savannah song
Somewhere 'cross the desert
Sometime in the early hours
In a restless world
On the open highways

My home is where the heart is
Sweet to surrender to you only
I send my love to you

Blue savannah song
Oh a blue savannah song
Racing 'cross the desert
At a hundred miles an hour
To the orange side
Through the clouds and thunder

My home is where the heart is
Sweet to surrender to you only
I send my love to you

I'm on my way back and your love will bring me home
I'm travelling fast and your love will bring me home
Will I discover that your love will bring me home?

Somewhere 'cross the desert
Sometime in the early hours
To the orange side
Through the clouds and thunder

My home is where the heart is
Sweet to surrender to you only
I send my love to you

------------------
Chapter 8:  Drama!
------------------
Erasure:  "Wild!" album

As Gydon and Matt stand at the edge of the installation, the odd gong in the
beginning of the song is the sound of Pariah's armor clanging against the pole
in the wind.  The purpose and identity of the Ancients is then revealed.

One rule for us, for you another
Do unto yourself as you see fit for your brother
Is that not within your realm of understanding?
A fifty second capacity of mind, too demanding?
Well then poor unfortunate you
There are a myriad of things that you can do
Like pick up a pen and paper or go and talk to a friend
The history of the future
No violence or revenge

Your shame is never . . . ending
Just one psychological drama after another
You are guilty and how you ever entered into this life
God only knows, the infinite complexities of love

We all have the ability
Our freedom is fragile
We all laugh & we cry don't we?
We all bleed & we smile

Your shame is never . . . ending
Just one psychological drama after another
You are guilty and how you ever entered into this life
God only knows, you're not to sacrifice the art of love

Your shame is never . . . ending
Just one psychological drama after another
We are guilty and how we ever entered into this life
God only knows, the infinite complexities of love
We are guilty and how we ever entered into this life
God only knows, we're not to sacrifice the art of love
We are guilty and how we ever entered into this life
The Lord only knows, the infinite complexities of love
We are guilty and how we ever entered into this life
God only knows, the ultimate necessity of love



______________________________________________________________________________

The final edition of this text was completed on Monday, May 29th, 1995,
by the Dinosorceror of Lava Dome III.
______________________________________________________________________________